BMW 630d GT xdrive M Sport
ROAD TEST
MODEL TESTED 630D XDRIVE M SPORT Price £56,605 Power 261bhp Torque 457lb ft 0-60mph 5.9sec 30-70mph in fourth 6.2sec Fuel economy 40.5mpg CO2 emissions 154g/km 70-0mph 45.0m
Any expanding company is likely to launch at least a couple of slow-selling product ‘flops’ for every successful model introduction – even with the most thorough, expert designers and market researchers on the payroll. It’s an unavoidable consequence of growth, you might say. And BMW has certainly been growing quickly enough these past 20 years to have perpetrated the odd dud in among its glitteringly successful product triumphs.
Very few car-industry watchers – living in Europe, at least – would argue that the 5 Series Gran Turismo ought to be spared criticism on that front. This awkward-looking jacked-up executive hatchback has singularly failed to hit its sales targets everywhere apart from in China, where buyers responded more positively to its blend of luxury, convenience and value than anywhere else on the planet.
This was a car launched in 2009, before either of Audi’s A7 or A5 Sportback siblings, before the original Porsche Panamera and before Mercedes-benz’s CLS Shooting Brake. Its genesis therefore came before consensus had formed about the most viable way to combine style and space in an alternative to a modern executive saloon. And to look at one today, wouldn’t you know it?
You might imagine BMW could ill-afford to directly replace a car like that – and yet, encouraged by the warmer reception enjoyed by its current 3 Series Gran Turismo, that’s more or less what it is doing.
The 6 Series Gran Turismo is a slightly lower, longer, roomier, better-looking and better-appointed attempt at precisely the same vehicle concept as the 5 Series GT, the change in identity from ‘5’ to ‘6’ intended to more accurately define the car within the wider BMW range. And with the old 6 Series Coupé and Convertible set to be replaced by de-facto equivalents in the bigger 8 Series family, this will be the only 6 Series you can buy before too long. The particulars and nuances of its mission, compared with luxury executive rivals and BMW’S large and medium-sized in-house alternatives, are what we’re here to explore. DESIGN AND ENGINEERING BMW’S approach to this car’s redesign looks more like an evolution than the wholesale reboot you might have imagined was required. The 6 Series GT is 87mm longer and 21mm lower of roofline than its predecessor and it has more steeply raked A-pillars, a more curvaceous roofline and a much lower bootlid.
You’d describe the new car as much less odd-looking than its forebear, but this is still a car of deeply challenging visual proportions, one that fails to produce a tellingly elegant impression or to make much of a virtue of its outward appearance. Given that it’s in competition with cars that achieve that last feat so plainly, that’s a problem.
In a more rational sense, though, the 6 Series GT doesn’t struggle nearly as much for appeal. With the same 3070mm wheelbase as
WE LIKE Comfort Space and visibility Multi-talented diesel powertrain Outstanding infotainment features WE DON’T LIKE Still not desirable or visually appealing enough You can’t avoid run-flat tyres with M Sport trim Optional Comfort seats should actually be more comfortable
a current 7 Series saloon, the new 6 Series betters the already generous levels of passenger accommodation of the 5 Series GT as well as improving on that car’s boot space by some 110 litres.
BMW’S Cluster Architecture platform underneath the car mixes high-strength steel with aluminium and makes for an average 150kg weight-saving for the car compared with its predecessor. On the outside, its ‘liftback’ hatchback, doors and bonnet are aluminium too.
Mounting longways under the bonnet and driving either the rear axle exclusively or both of them, the engines represent a familiar choice between four- and six-cylinder turbo petrol or six-cylinder diesel power. BMW’S 255bhp 2.0-litre 630i turbo petrol is the entry point to the range, and at its height, you can choose between a 335bhp 3.0-litre six-pot 640i or a 316bhp twin-turbocharged 3.0-litre 640d diesel, whose price is still to be confirmed. We elected to test the likely-big-selling 261bhp 630d GT xdrive, in similarly majority-selling M Sport trim.
For suspension, the car comes with an adaptively damped mix of steel coils up front and self-levelling air springs at the rear as standard. Fourcorner, fully adaptive air suspension is an option and appeared on our test car. BMW’S Integral Active Steering four-wheel steering system is also an option and can be paired with active roll cancellation as you prefer, but our test car had neither system. INTERIOR AAAAB BMW is offering an intriguing sort of relatively affordable, moderately high-rised alternative to conventional executive-car luxury here. The frameless doors, sweptback A-pillars and curving roofline may all be taken from the grand touring coupé’s design rulebook, but the 6 GT feels like anything but from inside. Its seats are semi-recumbent, with a more highly set hip point than you’d find in a full-sized limo such as a 7 Series or Mercedes S-class. Up front, the bent-legged ‘sit-up-andbeg’ driving position feels almost akin to that of a vintage chauffeur’s.
But that doesn’t mean you’re short on space anywhere in this car; quite the reverse, with more head room and better visibility in both rows than you’d get from a large executive saloon, and excellent knee, foot, elbow and shoulder room available too.
In the driver’s seat, conflicting sensations of familiarity and difference come at you. The fascia is much as you’d find it in a 5 Series saloon. Like those of the 5 Series,
the 6 GT’S flatscreen digital instruments change their scale, colouration and theme depending on the selected driving mode. The centre-stack-mounted air-con controls are as you’d find them on a high-end 5 Series too; likewise the centre-console-cited idrive controller and gear selector. But your position and orientation to all of the above is different. Your vantage point on them is higher – either a little bit higher or quite a lot so, depending on how you set the electric seat.
Our test car had BMW’S optional Rear Seat Comfort Pack (£2995), which adds a pair of tablet-sized rear entertainment screens in addition to side-window sunblinds, electric backrest adjustment and an on-board TV tuner. The back seats aren’t as widely adjustable as those of, say, a long-wheelbase S-class or a Bentley Bentayga, but they’re very agreeable.
Up front, the 6 Series sets a high standard on material fit and finish but leaves itself vulnerable to relative criticism in one or two areas. There is no shortage of apparent quality about the fixtures and fittings, but there is a deficit of richness compared with some luxury rivals, BMW’S switches and trims missing a little bit of tactile material swagger in places. Where BMW reaches for smooth nappa leather, on the door cards and around the centre console, it uses it very well, but it’s notable by its absence on top of the dashboard and the upper interior doors, where moulded ‘leather-effect’ plastic lets the side down a little.
At the back, meanwhile, the 610-litre cargo bay looks enormous enough to easily give credence to BMW’S claim that it’ll swallow four full-sized golf bags without the need to fold a single seat. It has a flat floor and a powered tailgate actuated by gesture control, making sliding awkward loads in and out very easy. PERFORMANCE Any engine that makes a two-tonne luxury conveyance like this capable of accelerating as quickly as a hot hatch, of soothing away miles with the manners of a first-class cabin attendant and of delivering more than 50mpg merits a warm reception from all quarters. To be fair, the greatness of BMW’S 3.0-litre six-cylinder diesel is so well established that it’s almost beyond question. If any oil-burning engine deserves immunity from the toxic swell of public opinion against diesel, it’s this one.
Whether it will survive that swell or not will have little to do with what’s just, of course. But rest assured, this engine has the muscle and tractability to move a heavy car effortlessly, and its application in the 630d GT has more than enough suaveness and refinement to suit a car with such a luxury-targeted brief.
This engine’s 457lb ft of tractive urge and ZF’S excellent eight-speed automatic gearbox make relaxed ground-covering blissfully easy. There’s a distant, faintly gravelly thrum audible from it at times, but even at high revs and under high loads, it’s no chore to listen to.
And you can easily ignore it if you prefer: the 67db of cabin noise we recorded in the 630d GT at a 70mph cruise shaded an Audi Q7 3.0 TDI by 1db at the same speed and, despite its frameless doors and windows, the BMW seems very well insulated from the outside world when you’re travelling within. What’s more, although our noise measurements are always done in the front seats for consistency, the 6 Series GT ought to be even quieter for its back-seat passengers because BMW has used extra soundproofing materials inside the rear doors, roof and seat backrests compared with what you’ll find in an equivalent 5 Series.
As well as being refined, the car is made deliciously smooth to drive by a progressive brake pedal feel and superbly linear-feeling accelerator. RIDE AND HANDLING If there’s justification in recasting the bigger of BMW’S two GT cars as a 6 Series rather than a 5 Series, it may be that it better prepares you for the fact that, dynamically more than anything else, this remains a luxury car first and foremost rather than some kind of extra-large middleweight executive saloon. Simply put, as something both to drive and be driven in, the 6 Series
GT is at least halfway to a 7 Series limo; probably slightly more than halfway, if you had to be absolutely specific.
Despite its M-sport-specification 19in alloy wheels and run-flat tyres, our 630d GT test car rode surprisingly well – although not without a little bit of rumble over coarse tarmac, or without a slightly firm, hard edge over sharper lumps and bumps. The car has Comfort and Comfort+ modes for its air suspension as well as the usual Normal and Sport settings and probably feels most at home in Comfort. Thus configured, it glides along very smoothly and with excellent long-wave compliance at typical motorway and A-road speeds, but never quite oscillating on its springs or running out of close body control as readily as it can at higher speeds in Comfort+.
BMW’S Adaptive mode ought to be the car’s most effective setting but, as more than one tester noted, it allows the secondary ride to become just a little bit fidgety and excitable. In Sport mode, the air suspension lowers the body by 10mm, stiffens the chassis rates and loads up the Servotronic power steering but, although it does all of that discreetly enough that the transformation doesn’t seem incongruous and it ultimately makes the 6 Series handle well enough to feel like a modern BMW, the net result doesn’t suit the 6 Series GT’S various strengths nearly as well as Comfort mode does.
So, more often than not, Comfort is what you settle for, delivered not at all costs but against a sufficiently high background level of handling composure that the car feels comfortable at both a 50mph pootle and a fairly brisk country road clip. BUYING AND OWNING The figure that’s likely to convince those who see a clear and rational case for 6 Series GT ownership may simply be the difference between the price of this car and an equivalent full-sized limo such as a 7 Series or an S-class. As you’ll see over the page, that can be the thick end of £20,000. Given that the 6 Series’ refinement, equipment sophistication and occupant space are fully commensurate with a fullsized executive limo and in some ways (cargo space, visibility) it even offers more, you could see why that might seem like a good deal if you’re not put off by the car’s somewhat unconventional appearance.
BMW’S big ‘value’ message with the car is that it’s effectively the same price as an equivalent 5 Series once you load up the smaller car with the same equipment. The 6 Series GT is certainly a well-equipped car.
As well as a surprisingly frugal one. Our 630d GT produced a touring test fuel economy result of 54.5mpg in Eco Pro driving mode. The Mercedes S350 Bluetec saloon we tested in 2013 was fully 10mpg short of that standard. On that basis, it should be capable of putting almost 600 miles between fuel stops, which high-mileage business commuters will surely appreciate. The car’s 154g/km CO2 emissions rating should also make it competitive with most big-engined diesel executive saloons on benefit-in-kind tax.