BMW 7 Series
The perfect limo for junior Frankels
WHY WE’RE RUNNING IT
To find out if BMW has finally created a credible alternative to the Merc S-class
It seems odd to be starting this with a line or two about a Mercedes-benz but a letter from a reader explaining why he gave up on 30 years of three-pointed star ownership to try his luck with a 740d is fascinating. To quote David Bridge directly: “I decided to look elsewhere for my main car as I don’t like the absence of a ‘traditional’ grille and bonnet star in the versions of the E-class now offered in the UK.” He then discovered he could buy a 7 Series “for not much more than a well-specified E-class.”
In the end, after ringing only two dealers, he secured an unregistered 740d that had sat around for a few months for less than £60,000, which should take a lot of the pain out of the first-year depreciation. And he is delighted with it for all the same reasons I am, so much so that when his many and various other cars come up for renewal, it’ll be to BMW that he turns first. And all because of a grille…
Anyway, ‘my’ 740Ld has been hard at work and, so far, the only note it has dropped belongs to Napster. BMW has an arrangement with the online music giant so that if you have an account, which I do, it should be as easy to use as any one of the other multitudinous entertainment options it places at your disposal. And often it is: because we live in the middle of nowhere and I have therefore raised a brace of country bumpkins, I can challenge either daughter to name any song ever recorded and, at least eight times out of 10, have it playing within seconds of speaking its name into the BMW’S voice recognition system. But sometimes it just doesn’t work, even when there’s perfect reception. At others, it works so well that when you try to play, say, songs from your ipod, it won’t let you.
In the meantime and being the holidays, said daughters have been running me ragged, or they would have done were it not for the range, comfort and refinement of Big Seven. One required collecting from uni in Durham and appeared to have decided to bring most of the city with her. The other rather inconsiderately got selected to row for the Welsh junior team at a regatta in, you guessed it, Cork.
Having recovered from that, she then required depositing with some mates at a music festival, which just had to be in Cornwall. And the most telling thing I can report about these journeys – apart from the traffic in southeast Ireland being never less than horrid while we were there – is that I remember blissfully little about all of them. Because if you’re just sitting there crunching miles and have cause to remember something, it’s rarely for a good reason.
I’d not say the car has amazed me in any particular way, save its range and fuel consumption, but the overall standard it now sets means it really can’t be compared with its previous generations and the positions they occupied relative to rivals at the time. They were perennial also-rans, but this is super-competitive against the best in the world, as David Bridge is also currently finding out to his considerable pleasure.