BMW Individual, the German carmaker’s personalization channel, have unveiled a one-off edition of the M850i called the BMW M850i xDrive Coupe Night Sky. The brand has created the car with inclusion of materials found in meteorites present on the interior and exterior of the car.
Meteorites are basically a comet, asteroid or a meteoroid that originate in the outer space and survive their passage through the atmosphere to crash on to the surface of the earth in the form of small rocks. BMW has sourced materials from such meteorites to incorporate them in the M850i’s cabin. Moreover, BMW said the car would be honoring the incoming meteor shower expected to take place overnight, from January 3rd through to the 4th.This allows BMW to state that the car features materials that are literally out of this world.
BMW has processed the material from the meteorites and adorned the center console’s trim plate, the start/stop button, selector lever and the touch controller for the iDrive system with it. Even the door sills sport the same.
The cabin also features Widmanstätten-patterned surfaces. BMW says that it is a geometric structure. It has straight lines that appear to be ice crystals and become visible when certain types of iron meteorite are polished or brought into contact with acidic compounds. This can only be found after the metal alloy cools down in an extremely slow process that cannot be reproduced on Earth, making it an unmistakably an imprint of extra-terrestrial material.
This can also be found on the hand-stitched headliner and on the center console’s trim finishers as well as outside, on the brake discs, around the mirror caps, front splitters for the side air intakes, center mesh plates and the surrounds for the Air Breathers on the front side panels.
Furthermore, two different color tones were used to create a special shade. Black non-metallic was used as the base color for the body after which a second coat in San Marino Blue metallic was then applied in a graduated effect. This was then finished with three layers of clear coat with varying pigment particle sizes for depth.
The car is more than just meets the eye. It features BMW Motorsport-developed brake calipers, which are up to 30% lighter than conventional components thanks to the process of 3D printing. Moreover, the BMW M850i xDrive Coupe Night Sky comes with a 530 PS V8 4.4-liter twin-turbo engine, track-tuned chassis technology and BMW xDrive intelligent all-wheel-drive system.