The makers of the ultimate driving machine have made an attempt to make even a long, luxury sedan like this drive like one of their smaller models. And they have succeeded to an extent. It’s just that this car is so long that you can actually sense the rear end furiously keeping up with the front end at sharp curves. But it’s perceptibly better handling than the last-gen long wheelbase S-Class, which feels heavier and flabby compared to this Beemer. We’ll have to wait for the brand new one to make a proper comparison and see if Mercedes has come close to BMW territory in making you feel one with the car.
But where the Mercedes wins is in ride quality. The 7er’s double-joint spring strut front axle with aluminium track control arms and an aluminium multi-link axle at the rear, with anti-roll bars at both ends are no match for the way the S-Class wafts. On good roads, the BMW is brilliant and you really enjoy the sensation of piloting it, but on bad roads, the poor thing is quite twitchy – the car hates them. Though self-levelling comes as standard, it is still not enough for our conditions. A manually operated ride height control would be more in tune with our roads. Real bad roads also affect the otherwise brilliant steering of the Beemer.
BMW’s Active Steering is standard on this car, and it essentially is much more intuitive and responsive to the kind of speeds you are doing. You can actually sense it tighten at higher speeds and your inputs somehow seem to be just right for the car – no matter how bad your driving is, the car seems to do the thinking for you. Conversely, at low speeds, the steering lightens up so that you can squeeze your car between others at Nariman Point or Connaught Place easily. However, bad roads make life miserable for the steering and it suddenly doesn’t know what to do – I think it mixes up signals, if it gets signals, that is.
Oh, but you won’t notice this much, as in this car you’d rather be at the rear seat. Heck, rear passengers get their own iDrive system, individual climate control systems, an LCD panel mounted between the front two seats and bottle coolers and a whole lotta luxury stuff. Plus, there’s an enormous amount of legroom. The 740Li comes seriously loaded and you can customise your 7er based on your needs. Damages? Around Rs 70 lakh or more, depending on options taken. If not, a brand new car from Stuttgart is around the corner.
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