BMW 850CSi (E31)
Why 6.0: DougScore 59, and the only 8-series pairing the S70 V12 with a proper manual — every other 850 shipped with an automatic. That combination crashed through the 2000s like every big turbo-era BMW coupe, and the enthusiasts who bought in during the trough never really left.
Layout
Natural habitat
Ride comfort
Sound
The 5.6 S70 is uncannily smooth and layered, and twelve cylinders at idle is a specific pleasure nothing else on this page offers. But BMW silenced it as a luxury coupe and it stops at 6,000 rpm, so it hums rather than sings. Rated for refinement, not volume.
12-cylinder · naturally aspirated · 6,000 rpm redline · rated 6.6 / 10 for engine sound
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · €95k (1996) → €106k (2026), trending up · illustrative data
Child seats · ISOFIX
Built before ISOFIX existed, so there are no anchor points at all. A child seat here is a seatbelt installation, and the belt geometry of the period was not designed with one in mind.
Derived from production years and seating layout, not a per-car source. ISOFIX was standardised as ISO 13216 in 1997, required on new EU model types from 2011 and on all new EU cars from 2014.
The long version
BMW built the 850CSi specifically to answer critics who thought the 850i was too soft, fitting a reworked 5.6-liter M-tuned V12 and pairing it — uniquely in the 8-series range — with a six-speed Getrag manual and a limited-slip differential. Roughly 1,500 were built for worldwide sale, and for most of the 2000s and 2010s that rarity did nothing for values: big, complex, expensive-to-maintain coupes were exactly what the used market didn't want, and clean examples traded for E39 M5 money or less. The owners who bought in during that trough did so because they wanted the only manual V12 8-series that exists, not because they expected a return, and many are still driving the cars they bought a decade ago. Values have more than quadrupled off the bottom as the wider collector market rediscovers hand-built 90s BMW flagships, but the driving culture predates the money by a decade.