Need BMW regulars' information: BMW Z4 Coupe 3.0Si

[centurion]

Me and a couple of friends are looking and considering new cars. It's more attractive now that prices have dropped, road tax confirmed and higher GST is coming and COE dropped. I'm not a BMW regular, and I never followed closely on BMW in a micro way, so I'm in need of advice from retulars. My personal choices are between (in no order of preference):

Porsche Cayman S Manual 6 PASM S$285K list(1 option, PASM) 295HP

Porsche Cayman Manual 6 PASM S$246K list (2 options, manual-default 5, and PASM) 250hp

Audi TT 2.0 FWD Magride S$200K list (1 option, Mag ride) 200HP

BMW Z4 3.0 SI Coupe bare Manual 6 (indent) S$208K list 266HP

I would like to know more about he Z4 3.0 SI... anybody has it? Any bugbears? Tell me even the slightest opinion you have please. Most of my enthusiast friends don't have BMWs and most of the friends who have BMWs don't give two hoots about cars. Even M3 owners I know just couldn't care less about the tech aspect of their machines. They're not on this forum.

IN addition, I have the following things bugging me:

1) The 335i coupe and sedan has piezo direct injection now on the same block now, what are the chances of the BMW Z4 3.0 SI Coupe having the similar piezo DI system on the magnesium engine also?

2) How does the weight savings of the BMW Z4 3.0 SI Coupe engine compared to the z4M Coupe translate to the handling?

3) Why is the BMW Z4 3.0 SI Coupe Singapore version rated at 266HP while some other versions in the internet quote 255HP?

4) What's the true meaning of `SI'? Detuned? What happens to the engine when they put the suffix SI on the car?

I'm not interested in paying for the Z4M Coupe as the 3.0 SI has sufficient horses for me, and I'd like a softer handling car as I'm not going to track this car regularly anyway. It's basically a gua musang/frasers hill/cameron highlands car as far as I'm concerned.

[kurqa]

if you are not a hardcore maybe the 2.5 Z is pretty good? of course if money is not an issue then i guess you could go for the best...have you considered the 3 series coupe, it may be the "softer" option you are looking for

[centurion]

THere's no coupe version for the 2.5SI engine. Not in Singapore, not in the world, and given the lousy sales for the Z4 Coupe, I hazard to guess `not in the future' either.

If I get this new toy car, I'd buy another one at the same time, so I'll have access to uncompromised people movers. So the new toy car would have to be utterly an uncompromised `me-only' pleasure car.

I drove the new coupe, I found that the driving experience was similar to the sedan - above average communicative steering, steady stiff chassis, understeers significantly, a little more rorty than the 630, 325 coupe utterly lacks power, VERY good space in the rear compared to 630, large trunk, OK build quality, good high speed ride, very poor low speed ride, smooth 6 speed slush transmission. But I didn't get a lustful feeling after the test drive (I was dying to get out of the car after the south buona vista road) so the coupe is not `it'.

I was not precise when I said softer handling car. What I really wanted, is that the ride can be firm but the car still composed on poor roads like mountain roads. It is really not necessarily to have an overly poor ride to achieve good coposure under most circumstances, the Cayman (without PASM) has confirmed this, and the PASM (electronically controlled shock absorber valving) version seems to be a leap better.

I'll try to give every bit of consideration to the 3.0SI Z4 Coupe next week after the Z4M coupe drive next week. After all it's a matter of $70K of hard dollars.