The BMW i8 costs $300,000 here in Australia - that’s $100,000 per cylinder. But, to be fair, at least they throw in a free electric motor. Let’s go for a test drive. I guess when you spend $300,000 on a car, you need to tick a few boxes. It’s got to go like a bat out of hell. Make that two bats. And it has to look the part, so … no problems there. And the final thing is exclusivity. I guess that’s where the BMW i8 has it all over the Aston Martins and Maseratis of this world. It’s pretty exclusive. This is a very fast car: 4.4 seconds to 100km/h. Just as quick as the Porsche Cayman GT4, and far more technically sophisticated. Petrol powertrain down the back, and battery-powered electric motivation up the front. Combined output: 266kW and 570Nm - with slightly less than two thirds of it at the rear. The end result is superbly sure-footed performance between bends. It’s blindingly fast on a favourite stretch of twisty road. Just brilliant. You’ll even forget the i8 is a hybrid. The petrol engine certainly is worthy of a special mention. It sounds better than any 1.5-litre three cylinder has a right to sound. Turbocharged. 1.5 litres. 170 kilowatts. And I tell you what - even though this is only three cylinders and 1.5 litres they’ve made it sound outstanding. What a pity it’s fake. BMW calls it ‘Active Sound Design’, but they really mean: fake engine noise. So plugged the i8 into a standard wall socket using the charger that comes with the car, for three or four hours. The trip computer tells me that doing this added just 12 kilometres to the range - up from 368 to 380 kilometres. Not a significant increase. The inside is cramped but well appointed, and the i8 comes with all the expected BMW Connected Drive goodies. The back seat might be a cruel and unusual punishment clearly not ratified by the Geneva Conventions, but it does come with ISOfix attachment points. Noise, vibration and harshness is very apparent in this car, but it might be a little unfair to whip it too heavily as a consequence. At times the petrol powerplant up the back end isn’t turning and burning, so it can’t offer any vibrations that tend to mask things like tyre noise and road noise. One of the things I just didn’t expect was for the steering to be this light. It’s not imprecise; it’s just light. Thankfully it gets a bit heavier in Sport mode, which is just a left-ward nudge of the gear lever away at any time. That stiffens the suspension and keeps the petrol engine continuously alight. Sport is the most engaging of the five different driving modes you can select in an i8. You’ve got your real supercars, which are intimidatory and sometimes downright scary - like 120kg of bouncer in an Armani suit, with a certain sadistic gleam in his eye. If that’s what a supercar is, then the i8 certainly doesn’t qualify. This BMW i8 has all of the trademark cramped supercar compromises, but ultimately it lacked the demeanour that boils down to: ‘mess with me and you’re dead’. To me, the i8 felt more like a downloaded supercar app than the real thing. And in some ways, that made it better, more practical. It’s certainly distinctive and exclusive, it’s a technical knockout, and it’s got the look.