BMW 750Li
The flagship of Bavarian luxury: brains and comfort above all, but power and agility, too
By Nigel Moll - June 1, 2009
One piece of eggshell can spoil the enjoyment of a whole omelet, and that’s how it was with my evaluation of the all-new BMW 750Li. While the car I tested had only 3,000 miles on the odometer, they had been accrued at the hands, and perhaps the leaden pedal feet, of the press corps in the American West. By the time the car had been trucked across the continent for press duty in the Northeast, something was out of kilter in the front end–a gimpy strut, perhaps, or maybe an injured bushing or ball joint. The car felt OK at a good clip on decent roads, but at residential-area speeds it lacked the poise one expects of the “ultimate driving machine” and the flagship of Bavarian luxury.
On the last day of the test, the local BMW dealer let me drive a 750i demonstrator with the same sport package that the test car featured. After its tires had warmed and softened the stiffness of a cool night, the dealer’s car felt poised and solid. BMW still builds a good car, the sun will still rise and, as the saying goes, all is well in the land. (Actually, of course, all is far from well in the land, but among car manufacturers BMW is doing less badly than most, thanks to some prudent planning and cutbacks last year.)
With my test-long mutterings about shakes, rattles and slipping standards eliminated, the new 750 turns out to be better than good. When it’s in fine fettle, it combines in one package something for every occupant–stupendous brainpower (much of it reminiscent of aerospace technology), horsepower (a twin-turbocharged 407 of them), agility and great comfort. The intelligence of the car is mind-blowing, bristling as it is with sensors to monitor an Al Qaeda-scale array of imminent threats.
Decades ago these sensors would have been called “electric eyes,” and the 750Li has at least 15 of them. The big one scanning forward from beneath the bumper gives the active cruise control insight into what lies ahead; once it has been engaged and a cruise speed selected, the system reacts by maintaining whichever of four distance separations the driver selects between the 750Li and the traffic ahead. If the car ahead slows, the 750Li follows suit, even braking to a full stop if necessary, narrowing the separation as speed decays.
Once traffic starts to move again, the 750Li driver simply pushes lightly on the accelerator or taps the resume button on the steering wheel–while keeping his feet flat on the floor for as long as his nerve holds. Mindful of the need to return the car undamaged, I kept my foot hovering over the pedals throughout all this autopiloted motoring. Only once did my courage crack; I stomped on the brake just to be sure the stopped-dead car ahead wouldn’t get nudged. It probably wouldn’t have happened but powerful instinct is hard to override.
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