The long version

The scissor doors and carbon-fiber tub promised a driver's car; the turbocharged three-cylinder and its piped-in soundtrack delivered something closer to a striking design statement that happens to move quickly in a straight line. Values fell by more than half within a few years of launch, a steeper drop than most of its hybrid contemporaries, as the initial technology premium wore off faster than BMW expected. What is left today is a genuinely cheap used exotic that mostly gets bought by people drawn to the shape rather than what it asks of a driver, and the ownership data reads accordingly: low miles, low track-day presence, a design object that happens to have doors.