After well-nigh two decades, BMW's half dozen-effigy, flagship luxury coupe is dorsum. The eight Series is slated to launch in 2018 to help practise battle with Mercedes-Benz, which captured the global luxury sales crown from BMW final twelvemonth.

BMW revealed the machine's prototype, the Concept 8 Serial, this weekend at Italy'due south Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este on Lake Como as a precursor to the viii Serial production model expected side by side year. The offset-generation eight Serial was discontinued in 1999 afterwards a 10-year run equally the brand's flagship coupe. The new model will replace BMW'southward outgoing 6 Series coupe.

Meanwhile, at some other loftier-contour European automotive event this weekend, the Nürburgring 24 Hours race in Deutschland, BMW teased a camouflaged paradigm of the 8 Serial' loftier-performance, track-oriented analogue, the M8.

Executives said the 8 Series launch is "role of the biggest model offensive in the visitor's history" and volition play an important office in BMW'southward efforts to increase its sales in the luxury segment. "This will exist the next model in the expansion of our luxury-car offer and will raise the benchmark for coupes in the segment," Harald Krüger, chairman of the board of management for BMW AG, said in a statement. "In the procedure, we volition strengthen our claim to leadership in the luxury form."

The 8 Series concept revealed a total-size coupe featuring crisp lines, clean surfaces, and a sculpted silhouette. The M paradigm shows elements that boost the 8 Series coupe'southward power: bigger air intakes, modified brakes and a sports exhaust with iv tailpipes.

"The conception and development of the standard BMW viii Serial and the Chiliad model run in parallel," Frank van Meel, President BMW M Division, said in a statement. "The time to come BMW M8 will build on the genes of the 8 Series and augment its Dna with added track power and generous extra portions of dynamic sharpness, precision and agility."

BMW said information technology's also developing a race machine based on the viii Series, called the M8 GTE, that will likely debut in Jan at the Rolex 24 at Daytona race in Florida.