Remember the BMW M4 Competition x KITH? Course you do, it was the G82 modified by young and cool people for BMW to sell to young and cool people. The 150-car production sold out in half an hour, and the accompanying collaborative merch drop was so oversubscribed that a BMW KITH ashtray is currently for sale on eBay for £80 (!). So no wonder all parties were keen on the collaboration returning for a second instalment.
This time around the car is an i4 M50, overhauled with Kith Vitality Green paint and BMW Individual Caramel Merino leather. Which is certainly a more classically cool combo than the black athleisure-style M4, if also quite common now as well. Even with special Kith bits. The new green and the new badges used for the i4 will only be found on the M50 by Kith, and are not for any other BMW. As if to show how much the collaboration means, this is the first time a paint colour has ever been named after a brand partner.
The car is another little M 50th birthday present, a ‘historic vehicle… bridging the gap between the past and the electrified present’. There will be just seven of them this time around, with one being auctioned and the rest, presumably, already spoken for. There’s going to be another merch drop, too, inspired by the green and caramel seen here, of apparel and accessories. And Christmas isn’t far away, so best get signed up to the Kith newsletter for details of that.
Far more interesting, however, is the little 1602 BMW has also shown. Not only has it been given the makeover, it’s actually been converted to electric. Oh yeah, and it’s the actual car of Ronnie Fieg - the founder of Kith. The 1602 Elektro hasn’t just been shoehorned in for some heritage or retro cool, either.
See, back in 1972, the year that M Division was formally created, Munich hosted the Olympic Games. For those games, BMW created a pair of electric 1602s for camera crews and committees to use for the long-distance events. ‘This was the start of a pioneering, forward-looking evolution of electrified vehicles at BMW’, says today’s press release. The newly overhauled 1602 of Fieg is described as a ‘homage to history’.
Given the rarity of both these Kith creations, it seems unlikely either 1602 Elektro or the Vitality Green i4 will be seen in the real world. Certainly not on your neighbours driveway, at any rate. The fact that BMW saw value in a second run at the collaboration shows something must have gone right, though. Imagine what they might conjure up when the new M2 is on sale…
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