My wife just scored a very nice 2003 Z4 3.0i with the sport package, and what appears to be the upgraded interior, with leather seats and a wood dashboard.

The wood appears to be African Lacewood, quite exotic for a car, even a BMW :)

Just wondering if anyone here knows if the wood dashboards in our little cars tend to be real or plastic. I'm a woodworker as a side hobby, and I seriously think it's real. It's got a texture to the grain, and a slight iridescence to it that I've only seen in real wood.

It's wood, albeit a thin veneer.

Even Rolls' use veneer on their dashboards I saw on TV. Although they use old growth wood and very expensive other types of wood. African Lacewood is a new one on me though. Must look cool, can you put up a pic?

I don't know what they used back then but now they advertise the wood is poplar. Poplar is a common species that was once used as filler that has little character. The secret is they now have a way to print a pattern on wood to make it look like an exotic hardwood! The centry old shotgun manufacturer Berretta offers "Extra-Wood" on some of thier less expensive guns. They know it would not pass on a 2-10K gun. It looks good from a distance. I imagine it would wear off. On a dash it's no big deal. I don't have a pot to piss in but would rather have real plastic than fake wood. I chose silver for my Z4. GH

The wood used on the 2003 Z4 is Sycamore High-Gloss wood. (as per BMW literature on vehicle) I have this in my vehicle also. It was offered as an option in both the 2.5 & 3.0

All modern woods look fake because they use synthetic lacquers or urethane to treat them. This stuff lasts forever, but the shine doesn't have the depth and character of the old stuff. Any owner of an old RR can tell you about how the old lacquer would crack and peel over time; I paid $2500 to get the dash of my 1966 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow re-finished, and that didn't include the windshield trim and door rails (which, thankfully, had already been done).

Even so, I had them re-done old style, though the company offered to use the new urethanes - it just wouldn't look right in a RR.