2015 Car of the Year Finalist: The BMW 7 Series is a high-tech masterpiece
Editorial note: Business Insider just named its 2015 Car of the Year, the Volvo XC90. This weekend, we're re-running our reviews of the five cars that almost beat out the Volvo for the honor.
The BMW 7 Series sits atop the Bavarian luxury-car maker's hierarchy of vehicles. It's supposed to be the smooth, suave, powerful luxury flagship sedan you graduate to when you're ready for the full-size semi-limo experience.
But the 7 Series - offered in three different trim levels, 740, 750, and 760 - has always been a divisive car for BMW fans and auto enthusiasts. As far as the "ultimate driving machine" goes, the 7 Series is a lot less fun to drive than its siblings, the 3 and 5 Series - unless you're idea of fun to drive is motoring along in a straight line at high speed with Beethoven ringing in your ears. It's big. It's quiet. It's remarkably well appointed. But it's just ... kind of ... boring, in the way that a 20-room mansion is. Oh look ... another ... room ...
Because it tries to retain some of the performance character of the smaller Bimmers, it doesn't match up well with its main competition, the Mercedes S Class. And because it's a four-door, a lot of buyers may look away and cast their gazes more lustily on BMW's SUVs and crossovers, which are more versatile, if less plutocratic.
At Business Insider, we debate the 7 Series more than any other luxury car. Matt DeBord has always disliked it; Ben Zhang thinks it isn't so bad. But both agree that even though you can objectively find a lot to like about the 7 Series, it has lagged behind another competitor, Audi's A8, when it comes to the technology story. (The A8 is one of the best car-tech experiences we've ever enjoyed.)
But, boy, has BMW changed the terms of the debate. The new 7 Series, which debuted earlier this year, is absolutely crammed with tech. And by crammed we mean suffused. Every aspect of the sedan is technologically amplified, enhanced, enabled. Not that this is exactly new: The 7 Series has always been a tech platform for BMW, going back to the early 2000s' introduction of the controversial iDrive system.
But the new 7 Series takes it to a whole 'nother level. As we found when BMW let us borrow an M Sport version of the 750i xDrive, tricked out with every bell, whistle, and, we think, possible trumpet, harmonica, and bass viola that BMW had in its techno orchestra.