BMW Gran Lusso (2013) the Pininfarina coupe revealed

BMW’s team-up with Italian styling house Pininfarina, the Gran Lusso coupe has been revealed in full at the 2013 Villa d’Este Concorso d’Eleganza in Italy. The imposing V12-powered coupe is a one-off styling concept for now, but shows the direction BMW could take for a new 8-series coupe, designed to battle the new Mercedes S-class coupe and Bentley Continental GT.

Riding on 21in alloys, the 7-series-sized Gran Lusso has all the trademark BMW styling boxes ticked: forward-raked ‘sharknose’ grille, the rear pillar's ‘Hofmeister kink’ in the windowline, and a cab-back stance accentuating that long bonnet. The sides are dominated by the large scallop behind the side vent cut-out: expect to see that lower styling line replicated on the next generation of showroom-ready BMWs.

Although this is the first time the Gran Lusso’s been shown, some of its styling does recall the BMW CS Concept from 2007. The supersized four-door coupe was intended to go into production as the flagship BMW, but  BMW got the jitters about building a high-end model in the wake of the financial crisis. The idea of a four-door BMW coupe has lived on in the 6-series Gran Coupe, and elements of the CS still influence modern BMWs, such as the rear light shapes and prominent kidney grilles.

Though BMW insists the Gran Lusso is a one-off, it’s certainly a shot across the bows of Bentley, Maserati, and Mercedes and their two-door, four-seat coupes. With some more conventional door mirrors, downsized wheels and boring necessaries like window-wipers, the Gran Lusso could become a viable future production model, based on the 7-series limousine’s underpinnings.

By Ollie Kew