[tranquility]

Some nice discussions. I fawned over the E86. I'm a fan of small and light cars, so the 1st gen was on my shortlist, but unfortunately by the time I was ready to buy, the 2nd gen came. It's definitely a very nice car, but like others have said, they went from a Cayman/Boxster (sportscar) fighter to more of a sports GT. I dunno how I really feel about that because maybe I am in that latter category driving-style-wise, but I still would've appreciated having a lighter/smaller car.

The only slight disappointment in the 1st gen was that it was created as a convertible, so I think the coupe is slightly heavier by 10kgs or something?...which is very weird, but I'd still go for the E86 because I'm not a fan of ragtops at all. The front is alright, maybe a bit dated but the back is so sexy. Maybe there are some humps that look a tad bit weird in the hatchback area, but overall, still a very sexy car.

The 2nd gen is overall nice too and I really like how they evolved the front but the back is not as good as the 1st gen's. The hardtop is preferable over the rag to me but the proportion seems a bit off, looks smaller than the rest of the car (which of course went to town at the buffet line haha). Its design was based on the 507, so I guess it has that going for it.

I personally don't get the purpose of the 3rd gen, they went back to a rag, the power is not a huge jump from the 2nd gen. The front looks great but the rear looks like some weird Japanese design, it's not cohesive to me, but owners are really pro-vocal about its looks.

Overall, it seems like BMW doesn't know what it wants to do w the Z line, there's no clear objective, it's like they failed to take out the Boxster/Cayman, so tried to take out the SLK350? and now I dunno what's its competitor(s).