‘Entry-level’ BMW 740Li is anything but bargain basement

A few months ago, colleague Jaco van der Merwe got thrust into a luxury lifestyle when he got to pilot his family around in BMW’s new M760Li. Costing close on R3 million and running a 430kW/850Nm, 6.6-litre V12 twin-turbo powerplant, you would struggle to come up with a good excuse as to why you were late for a board meeting – or in our case – why our girls were late for school. Everybody has their problems, I guess.

This week, my “problem” came in the form of the 740Li M Sport model – if you could call a luxury limousine that comes in at R1 680 400 “entry level”. Like I said, everybody has their problems and if you find yourself forced to drive or be driven in the 740Li, I doubt you will have any complaints. I didn’t. My daughter disappeared into the back and I never saw or heard from her. She was clearly well entertained.

It is a large, imposing car that puts you at the centre of attention wherever you go and maybe even more importantly, the interior that offers a VIP welcome of exclusive, high-quality materials with innovative connectivity features that can compete with anything on four wheels. It’s a place you can spend time in sublime comfort.

The BMW intelligent personal assistant of the 7 Series sedan makes it possible to say, “Hey BMW”, and your car will do almost anything for you, from finding a restaurant to reading your e-mail. And if you are in the mood to drive – it is actually very good to drive – you have pioneering driving assistance systems such as steering and lane control assist, which does most of the steering for you, parking assist plus, and the innovative reversing assist, which parks you.

So, when I ask if you are in the mood, I guess you should take that with a pinch of Bavarian salt: is it you driving the car, or is the car driving you? Maybe the right way to approach this is to just jump in the back, play the stock market and score a few million on the way to the office each day.

I deliberately haven’t made a big fuss about the 250kW/450Nm 3.0-litre powerplant because you might never drive your 740Li yourself and this engine is so smooth and seamless, you don’t even notice it is there when you are driving.

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