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BMW 760Li

While the world's top car manufacturers pour millions into researching ways to improve fuel efficiency and emissions, there is one area of the market where big cubic capacity still takes precedence - the luxury saloon sector.

By Euan Sey

December 2002

While the world's top car manufacturers pour millions into researching ways to improve fuel efficiency and emissions, there is one area of the market where big cubic capacity still takes precedence - the luxury saloon sector.

Recent months have seen Mercedes up the power stakes with a pair of 500bhp S-Class variants: the supercharged V8 S55 AMG, and the twin-turbo S600 V12. The firm's monopoly on the 12-cylinder saloon market will be short-lived, however, for January sees the arrival of a new flagship V12 version of BMW's 7-Series, priced from ΂£76,350. This new 6.0-litre 48-valver benefits from just about every trick in the book. Direct injection (a first for this size and configuration of engine) combines with Valvetronic valve timing to give the 760i and its 760Li long-wheelbase cousin 445bhp at 6,000rpm and 600Nm of torque at 3,950rpm. Even in such a bulky car - our 760Li weighed in at a huge 2,225kg - this translates into a startling turn of pace.

Press the electronically controlled gas pedal to the floor and the rear-wheel-drive machine will sprint from 0-62mph in a claimed 5.6 seconds. And on BMW's homeland autobahns, you could go on to an electronically limited 155mph. But for that restriction, you'd be pushing 180mph.
What's more, the BMW performs this feat of modern engineering in such a casual, fuss-free manner, that anyone lucky enough to be ensconced in the palatial back seats would scarcely have reason to peek above their copy of the Financial Times. So smooth and refined is the powerplant that it is impossible to detect it's running at all until at least 3,500rpm shows on the clock.

And while under maximum acceleration, the engine takes on a throaty, hard-edged tone that sounds as if it's physically tearing the atmosphere to anyone standing nearby. But more than any other car on the market, the top-of-the-range luxury saloon is defined by its cutting-edge technology.

BMW's new six-speed sequential auto is quite simply the best in the business; refined, responsive and designed to adapt rapidly to your motoring style. And when such a talented drivetrain is wrapped up in a package that steers as crisply, resists body roll and clings to the road as tightly as the new 7-Series, you've got a machine that appeals to even the most enthusiastic driver.

The 760Li is even very clean and fuel-efficient by class standards, beating the Range Rover 4.4 V8 with a CO2 output of 330g/km and economy of 21.1mpg. But we still don't like its complex iDrive system and slow-witted satellite navigation, and the 18-inch wheels give a pattery ride on broken surfaces. However, when you consider how lavishly equipped, comfortable and superbly built this flagship is, the 140 or so cars BMW expects to sell here each year seems like a conservative estimate.

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FIRST OPINION

    With Merc turning up the heat in the luxury sector, the new flagship 7-Series needed to be something special. And it is. The 760Li is rapid, eerily quiet and its economy and emissions put other 12-pots to shame. If you can live with its controversial looks and iDrive, there can be few more prestigious ways to arrive at board meetings.
 

AT A GLANCE

    Flagship BMW on sale January
    0-60mph in 5.6secs; 155mph
     
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