The hood is stylishly long; the deck is notably short and chopped and uplifted, with a lip; and the sides look like a cake created by a pastry chef who got carried away with his icing spatula. It's "convex playing off concave," according to BMW.

The nose is quite attractive, unfortunately ruined by the license plate mounting smack-dab in the middle of it all; imagine the designers' dismay! The front air dam offers very little ground clearance, not even enough to clear a standard sidewalk curb, so be careful when head-in parking. The grille, softened at its eight chrome-ringed corners and having dark vertical bars, and the exotic headlamps work well together. If you want your Z4 to make you feel good, turn on the parking lights in the dark and stand back; sharp arcing slivers of amber follow the bottom lines of the headlamps, creating distinction at a standstill. It smiles at you, flirting with its eyes in the dark. We'd hate to encourage people to drive around using just their parking lots as evening comes on, but your Z4 would look especially cool if you did.

The fenders are smoothly bulged, and our Sport Package 17-inch silver alloy 20-spoke wheels looked terrific. The 18-inch five-spoke wheels aren't nearly as stylish, but they're 8.5 inches in the rear, and with big wide rear tires the Z4 would lose some of its grace while marking its owner as a closet muscle-car guy. Of course if you had those wheels you'd probably also want the aerodynamic kit and weird rear spoiler to make it a fully tarted-up Z4. Next you'll need to find another hundred horsepower so you're not a poser.

The rollover protection is two looped bars behind the front seats, covered by gray plastic, with a seam, which looks unfortunately cheap. The plastic disguises what must be sturdy function; the bars are fixed, not pop-ups like the Z3 used to have, and are strengthened by being attached to a common bulkhead. The Z4 has earned a five-star rollover rating by NHTSA.