What's all this about?
It's BMW pulling a very similar trick to something it did last year. In spring 2015, it built a stunning, modern-day re-visioning of the 1970s CSL, which it called the BMW 3.0 CSL Hommage, for the Concours d'Elegance at the Villa d'Este on the shores of Italy's Lake Como. Then, later that same year, it repainted the Hommage in motorsport colours, called it the 3.0 CSL Hommage R and showed it off at another Concours d'Elegance, this time in Pebble Beach in California. Well, fast-forward to 2016 and the same two-stage process has happened to the stunning BMW 2002 Hommage.
Ah, so this is the racing version, then?
Umm... not really. In essence, it's just the 2002 Hommage that we saw at the Villa d'Este event, but now wearing some new war paint. BMW hasn't added an 'R' to the 2002's name as it did with the CSL last year, but it does say the colour scheme evokes its historic racers and also BMW's first forays into turbocharger technology.
Isn't the drink called Jägermeister, not Turbomeister?
It is. And it's utterly rancid. However, some awesome BMW race cars used to wear the striking bright orange livery of the herbal German drink and so this black-and-orange, tongue-in-cheek 'Turbomeister' livery is simply glorious. Also, it allows us to look at the M2-based 2002 Hommage again and wonder, wistfully, if BMW would ever have the guts to put it and the 3.0 CSL Hommage into some kind of limited production...
Here's hoping. What does BMW say about the 2002 Hommage v2.0?
Karim Habib, head of design for the German manufacturer, said: "The BMW 2002 Hommage celebrates the extraordinary feats of engineering on which BMW turbo technology is based and re-interprets them in the form of a design study. With its iconic orange/black paintwork, the car has a colour scheme and livery synonymous in the minds of many motorsport fans with the triumphs of the 1970s."
Matt Robinson - 19 Aug 2016