THE CAR IN FACTS
AAcross a car park it looks much like every BMW saloon – low and sleek with the wide front end dominated by the trademark kidney grille.
It’s only as you walk towards it that you get that Father Dougal moment of realisation – it’s much further away than you thought. As you get closer you realise that those nice double-spoke alloys are actually 20-inchers, the rear doors are longer than the fronts and that while it’s sitting in a standardsized bay its sharply sculpted front and rear are hanging over the edges.
This, then, is a behemoth of a car. The ‘L’ in the test car’s name denotes that this is the long-wheelbase version, meaning it measures in at 5.25m long and 1.9m wide. It’s a car designed to ensure those in the rear seats are as comfortable and pampered as those in the front, if not more.
Other clues to its status at the top of the Beemer heap are the Carbon Core slashes in the doors and the hundreds of tiny 7s engraved in the Laserlight headlights.
Those cues on the outside are relatively subtle but once you open the door the true nature of the 740Ld is properly revealed. The interior is a haven of luxury. Immediately obvious is the quality of the leather that adorns seats and doors and of the beautifully finished switchgear. ● Price: £104,030 ● Engine: 3.0-litre, six-cylinder, turbo, diesel ● Power: 316bhp ● Torque: 502lb/ft ● Transmission: Eight-speed automatic gearbox driving all four wheels. ● Top speed: 155mph ● 0-62mph: 5.3secs ● Economy: 52.3mpg ● CO2 emissions: 142g/km Delve beneath the surface and you’ll find a car designed to be the last word in comfort and convenience whether you’re piloting it yourself or being chauffeured around in the back.
All the seats are beautifully shaped, supportive and endlessly adjustable so even cross-continent cruising isn’t an issue. As well as heated and ventilated seats, the 7 adds a heated steering wheel and heated armrests, just in case your elbows get a bit chilly.
Up front the driver controls everything via the excellent idrive system. Linked to a 10.25-inch touchscreen, it’s quick, slick and good looking. It’s so densely packed that you’ll want to spend some time getting familiar with it but once you are it’s easy to see why it’s regarded as one of the best infotainment systems on the market.
The test car came with the BMW Professional navigation system which includes everything you’ll ever need plus a load of stuff you won’t. As well as CD/DVD, DAB and an inbuilt hard drive, the connected services give you access to music streaming services, web searches, news and weather reports. There’s also a topnotch sat nav with live traffic updates and a built in TV tuner for the front and twin rear screeens.
Of course, the sort of VIP passenger likely to travel in the rear of the big BMW will be used to getting their own way so pretty much all the 740Ld’s functions can be controlled from the back seats via a removable seven-inch
“It’s so spacious and smooththatfouradults could cover thousands of miles in it without batting an eyelid”