Speedtop Concept Debuts at Villa d’Este

This weekend, May 23-26, the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este will be held on the shores of Lake Como, Italy. BMW has been the main supporter of the show since 1999.

2025 Speedtop on the left, 2024 Skytop on the right.

Most years BMW debuts a new concept car at Villa d’Este. Last year it was Skytop, based on the M8. After a warm reception, BMW put the Skytop into limited production, with the first cars of 50 examples being shown this year.

The 3.0 CSL Hommage was shown in yellow but the customer cars were white.

This follows the pattern of the 2023 3.0 CSL, which was originally a concept only but, based on customer requests, 50 units were built and sold to “friends of the marque” for €750,000 each. The 3.0 CSL is based on the M4 production car.

The Speedtop has a Bugatti-like spline.

The Skytop also has a planned volume of 50 cars, and the price is €500,000 each. While these prices are high, and while the base cars are standard production cars, these special cars have completely hand-made, coach-built interiors and exteriors, with super premium materials used.

The Speedtop's beautiful interior uses the finest materials and no iDrive.

This year’s concept car is called Speedtop, which was introduced May 23, 2025. It is a derivative of last year’s Skytop and the front of the car is the same as Skytop. But the Speedtop is a three-door shooting brake. Both the Skytop and the Speedtop are beautiful cars, begging the question why can’t BMW make the normal production cars better looking?

Speedtop has a large, two-level trunk.

The time lag between concept and limited production cars is shrinking. There were several years between the 3.0 CSL concept and the 50 customer cars. With the Skytop, there was a one-year wait between the concept appearing and showing the first customer cars.

Speedtop's rear hatch is clearly a shooting brake design.

This year, the Speedtop concept is being introduced and simultaneously BMW has announced the availability of 70 customer cars at a price of €500,000 each. The other interesting thing is that the Speedtop was the subject of a press release from BMW of North America, so maybe this car is going to be offered in the U.S. That wasn’t the case with the 3.0 CSL, although I understand that one or two cars are in the country. And Skytop was never promoted in North America, although I would expect some enterprising wealthy collectors will find a way.

The other change with Speedtop is who is doing the custom work to produce these cars. The 3.0 CSL was hand built at BMW M. Where the Skytops are being built isn’t clear. The Speedtops are produced with “The elaborate craftsmanship of the exterior and interior was realized with the expertise of the Manufactory workshop at BMW Group plant Dingolfing.”

My speculation is that BMW is going to slowly start offering greater levels of customization for BMW production models. Rolls-Royce creates each car as essentially a one-off. Other premium manufacturers are finding this factory customization business very lucrative. Think Ferrari and Porsche. In fact, Schedoni, the famous leather goods supplier to Ferrari, produced the luggage for the Speedtop.

Based on the M8, the Speedtop is a large car for two people and luggage.