REVIEW: exploring the BMW 7 Series… and its party trick

However glamorous the adventures of a globetrotting executive may appear, a life on the road can take its toll on a gentleman’s health. Total up the hours spent in airport lounges, sitting on planes and travelling between meetings and you’d be looking at weeks, if not months in transit, especially for the more travelled captains of industry. Time on the road matters, so what you’re spending that time in matters even more and BMW believes it has the solution: the sixth generation 7 Series.

original 7 series

The latest incarnation of BMW’s flagship limousine looks a world apart from the original as I catch my first glimpse of them side by side outside Porto’s old Customs House. The 1977 car looks dainty and comparatively sparse inside alongside its slab-sided but fresh-faced grandson. The lines of the new model are deceptive: its presence would suggest that, like most cars, the 7 Series has swelled over the years but it is no larger than the previous generation says Timo Resch, Vice President of the project. At the same time, the 7 is lighter than its predecessor with its ‘carbon core,’ as first seen on BMW’s hybrid i8 supercar, reducing the weight by 130kg.

Rio Doro valley

But it’s not all about looks, it is gents? It’s time to head deep into Portugal’s vine region, down through the sweeping bends of the Rio Doro valley, and what better way to travel than in the back of the long-wheel base V8 7 Series. This is where most buyers should, and most likely will, opt to be as BMW expect a large proportion of 7 Series sales will come from corporate buyers and chauffeurs. Should you find yourself lounging in the rear, it’s worth knowing about a small button on the armrest of the rear door which folds and retracts the front passenger seat, transforming it into your very own padded leather footrest. At the same time, grab the removable Samsung tablet, mounted in the centre armrest, to select your favourite TV show and browse the Internet through the built in WiFi.

interior

Feeling a little tense after a long day at the office? No problem, BMW’s got it covered with its built in Vitality Programme, providing you’ve ticked the rear-seat massage function and rear-seat entertainment experience with BMW Touch Command at a sizeable £3600, of course. Rather than provide you with a tepid massage while you sit slumped in the back, the Vitality Progamme relaxes and regenerates muscles by making you work against the resistance in the seat, with the aim of improving posture, boosting circulation and exercising muscles during long journeys. Does it work? Yes, surprisingly so and it would even introduce a bit of colour into the cheeks of some fitness fanatics.

vitality programme

On either the motorway or the rutted Portuguese back lanes, the 7 Series has one of the smoothest rides on the market. But it’s only once we’re on to the sweeping bends of the Rio Dora valley that I choose to get behind the wheel. Following the river, down which some of the world’s finest port has sailed for centuries, the 7 Series is surprisingly nimble through the corners for a car weighing just short of two tonnes and, with a 4.0-litre petrol V8 up front, it doesn’t hang around when you need to push on. The twin-turbos reduce lag when accelerating, albeit not entirely, and are capable of catapulting the 7 Series to 62mph in 5.6 seconds and on to a top speed of 155mph.

drive

After wrestling the 7 through the increasingly narrow Portuguese lanes, we arrive at the Sixth Senses Hotel. Built into the hillside, on the site of an old estate, the mix of modern and traditional Portuguese design is a welcome sight and my home for the evening. I’m later told that our route to the hotel is ‘the world’s best road’, according to Walter Schindlebeck, vice president of project BMW 7 Series. And, as you’d expect from a German chief engineer, he’d done his homework; ‘German scientists worked out that it had a near perfect ratio of corners to straight road.’ No ifs no buts, gentlemen, the German man has spoken.

drive to Porto

The next morning, it’s a short trip through the mountain mist to the Grahams port house in Porto. Purposeful looks and impressive driving dynamics are an added bonus for the 7 Series. But what this car really stands for is technology. Like its competitor, the Mercedes S-Class, the 7 Series is BMW’s showcase car, the vehicle to demonstrate what the German powerhouse is capable of in terms of automotive innovation and advanced engineering.

When the original launched in 1977, it wowed the world with the first electronic speedometer. In 2001, it was the first model to sport BMW’s iDrive infotainment system and in 2008, the model was the first BMW car to introduce steering to both the front and rear axle. And, as you may have already guessed, the 2015 model is no different: it has more tech on board than Apple’s research laboratory.

Perhaps most impressive of all is that the 7 Series is very almost capable of driving itself on the motorway. Activate Lane Assistant and the car will gently steer itself, up to a certain point, keeping itself perfectly within the lines. Wander outside the lane without indicating and you’ll receive vibration and a more forceful self-correction on the steering wheel. Switch another button on the steering wheel and the 7 will keep a precise distance from the vehicle in front, accelerating and braking when needed. It really is bizarre to be sat in the pilot’s seat of a car capable of semi-autonomous driving, it’s a significant achievement but at the same time, there’s a creeping sense of human redundancy and an eerie fulfilment of BMW’s former marketing strapline, ‘the ultimate driving machine.’

jedi power

As with all showcase cars, the 7 Series has its party piece, and it comes in the form of Jedi power. Wave your hand in a certain way in an imagined box above the gear stick and the radio volume increases. Perform another pre-determined gesture and the radio channel changes or you can sift through your phone contacts. Hey presto, you’re Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker all rolled into one – but be careful, gents, make a certain gesture too high and other road users may not find it so amusing, as I quickly discovered.

If that hasn’t quite wowed your partner in the passenger seat, then the 7 Series has one last trick in the boot. Like Piers Brosnan did with a now decrepit Sony Ericson phone in Tomorrow Never Dies, the tech wizards at BMW have turned the 7’s smartphone-like car key into a remote control. When it’s rolled out in 2016, the key will enable the driver to move the car out of tight spaces without having to be behind the wheel. The gadget is currently limited to just straight line forwards and backwards motions, so don’t be picturing any exploding car chases just yet, gents.

smartphone key

The new 7 series is hard car to fault with it ticking the vast majority of the premium limousine criteria. With a starting price of £65,000 leading on to circa £76,000 (depending on extras) for the model I tested, it is a very worthy adversary for the slightly sleeker looking Mercedes S-Class. While the 7 is a pleasure in the back, it lacks driving excitement and theatre behind the wheel, especially when considered against Maserati’s V8 Quattroporte GTS. But as a resting place for the globetrotting, luxury-loving executive with a penchant for tech, the 7 Series is exactly what the doctor ordered.

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