This Elvis Presley-Inspired BMW Z4 Is Real and It Will Hurt Your Brain

Many people don’t like the look of BMWs these days. Indeed, kidney grilles are large enough to swallow babies, and how do you explain XM to someone? Well, if you’re not a fan of BMW’s current models, there is a store in Germany that can offer you something different. Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik is a body shop and if you buy a current generation BMW Z4 it will come out the other end of the store as the Tender 5.7, a new BMW designed to look like the BMW 507 that Elvis owned . Look, I’m sorry about your headache, but you should take some Tylenol before you continue.

Every day of every week I’m always online looking for some sort of car to buy or, at the very least, look at. While there are cool cars on Facebook, Craigslist, and Hemmings, you’ll find some forbidden fruit on a site like Classic Driver. Usually I find an obscure German microcar there but today, well, I’m not sure what I found. If you are one of our European readers, Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik will be happy to sell you this 2021 BMW Z4 M40i for €288,000, or $312,955 at current exchange rates. If you’re American, you probably can’t have this.

Either way, I’m pretty sure everyone reading this article right now will have an opinion on what they look like. I have a feeling you’re either going to love it or you’re going to hate it and there’s going to be no point in between.

Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik was founded in Germany in 2016 and has since produced carbon fiber body kits for sports cars and exotic cars. However, the company presents itself as more. Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik says it’s a bodybuilder, preparer and more. The company claims it could manage the complete development of a vehicle, including finite element analysis through to tooling design.

The Tender 5.7 is not only a showcase of this company’s skills, but seemingly a love letter to the BMWs of yesteryear. Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik takes just 15 BMW Z4 G29s and turns them into cars that vaguely resemble old BMW 507s. From Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik:

Ursula Andress, the first Bond girl, fell under its spell, Alain Delon drove one, but Elvis Presley made it immortal. Stars and legends like these never missed the opportunity to drive a roadster. Our Tender 5.7 brings back the new life attitude of the 50s and 60s – unconventional and optimistic like the king of rock’n’roll. For many years, Elvis Presley’s roadster gathered dust forgotten in a barn near San Francisco until it was rediscovered by chance. This wonderful story inspired us to breathe new life into this timeless and rare beauty in our interpretation.

We from Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik GmbH presented our Roadster Tender 5.7. As a long-time partner of renowned tuners in the automotive industry, we enjoyed bringing our own vision of the Tender to the road. We developed the carbon body in cooperation with ds-Fasertechnik GmbH. The result is a fascinating combination of contemporary lightweight construction and cutting-edge technology with the elegance and aesthetics of the 1950s.

Actual tender

As Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik notes above, this is a BMW Z4 with a carbon fiber body kit designed to look like a 507. However, Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik doesn’t stop there. The Tender 5.7 is then painted in BMW Classic colors and the interior is dressed in full leather in the color of your choice. Additional touches include Tender 5.7 badging, including on the brake calipers, the addition of forged wheels and a custom leather wind deflector.

It’s also not just show and no. There’s a European-spec BMW B58B30C 3.0-liter inline-six under the hood. In stock, this would have produced 335 hp, but Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik opened the hood and added a larger turbocharger, a Euro 6 downpipe and a Bastuck exhaust system. A few tweaks later and Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik claims this engine now puts out 500 horsepower and 479 lb-ft of torque on the 20-inch forged wheels. A set of coilovers assists in wheel assembly.

The rest of the car is pretty much a standard Z4 M40i. There’s a 12-speaker Harman Kardon audio system, dual 10.25-inch screens, and an eight-speed ZF automatic transmission. Of course, Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik is a bodybuilder, so if you have any personal requests, the company will endeavor to accommodate them.

Some of you are squirming right now, that’s for sure, but I think you should know that Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik has already built two of these. The first one has already been sold and you are currently looking at the second one. Barring custom color choices, Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik says purple and white are now considered. There are only 13 more colors left for 13 more cars, including a dark green, a bright red, and a sort of dull yellow.

If you’re one of our American readers, the Tender 5.7 is forbidden fruit, as customs are unlikely to be entertained by a souped-up European-spec BMW. If you’re one of our European readers and want a modern BMW 507, your price of entry will be €288,000 unless you request customizations. At the very least, it’s a lot cheaper than a real BMW 507, which will cost you well over a million dollars.

I’m just going to sit here processing everything I look at here. I don’t know if I like it or not, but I’m glad it exists.

Images: Estella-Fahrzeugtechnik