The mid-life refresh on the BMW 7-series does make it stand out from the crowd. But it also makes it a very good car

Last week we found ourselves in the Algarve, a region on Portugal’s southern coast. It is one of the most beautiful places  in the world, with hills flush with an abundance of citrus trees bearing lemons and oranges and every ridgeline topped with a wind-turbine. One can understand why BMW loves Portugal so much for their media drives. But we were driving the BMW 7-series, not the sort of car which you would imagine that is designed to handle either the sharp corners of the mountain roads or the long sweeping high-speed turns of the Portuguese highways. The 7-series is after all a limousine, it’s a car meant for VIP’s extremely comfortable drive from his or her home to office and back with an occasional trip to the airport.

But as I drove the 750Li through the occasionally worryingly narrow mountain roads of Algarve, I began to realise why the company was making us drive this car through these roads. It is because, while the 7-series remains an extremely comfortable cruiser, the subtle changes to the car’s chassis are quite obvious. The 750Li had BMW’s active all-wheel drive and steering XDrive technology, but when you take a corner hard, the adaptive roll stabilisation on this iteration of the car seems to defy the axioms of physics. Seriously, you would think something as large as a cruiseliner on the roads would roll grotesquely if you threw it into a corner at anything above 50 kilometres an hour, but as I gained confidence while driving, there were corners I took at a scarcely believable 80-90 kilometres an hour, which by the way, was the speed limit on Portugal’s smaller roads. I had to keep on reminding myself that I was not driving a 3-series or a 5-series, the handling almost did not compute in my head.

Of course, no matter what BMW’s engineers do to the roll characteristics of the car by defying the laws of physics, the human body can’t be re-engineered by the boffins in Munich. So if I was driving the 7-series for a living and I drove like that, I would probably lose my job. After all, you do not want the big man at the back spilling his lunch over all that expensive leather and touchscreens. But it is good to know that you can escape from a kidnapping attempt or a terrorist attack at a considerable rate of knots and this car will not let you down. And if you are the rare sort of person who does drive a 7-series occasionally, the adaptive suspension is fabulous. This feels like a smaller BMW to drive, and I mean that as the greatest compliment.

But chances are that when you buy this series, it will not be for its exhilarating driving experience. You would want to buy something like this because you want to be seen, and the refresh of the 7-series is all about being seen. Now, I learnt during the drive from BMW executives that 44 per cent of all 7-series sold in the world are in China. BMW sells more 7-series in China annually than they do in India for their entire product line. That is how important China is for the Bavarian manufacturer. And if there is one thing that marketers and manufacturers should know about rich Chinese, it is that they love showing off their brands, not that we’re different but the big ‘LV’ logo of Louis Vuitton was created for China. Ditto for the interlocked Gs of Gucci.

The Chinese love major brands, so the big visible change on the refreshed 7-series is the new kidney grille, which is 40

per cent larger and milled from a single piece of aluminum. And that is coupled with a new BMW logo on the nose that is 12 mm larger in diameter, which is quite clearly obvious to the naked eye. The strange thing is that as BMW has gradually moved away from the iconic ‘corona’ headlights in the recent cars. They have become three-dimensional elements, the big grille and logo will definitely announce your arrival. And it is not just Chinese who will like these elements, because I feel Indian buyers will appreciate them as well. There are some minor changes to the air breathers down the side, but major changes are to the rear, particularly the taillight unit which also gets a three-dimensional design and the exhausts, making the car look very attractive from its back portion.

But most importantly for VIPs on the seat diagonally behind the driver, it is more comfortable and quieter than before,  thanks to new acoustic shielding and and window-panes. The seat options and massage functions remain and with quilting on the Napa Leather on the door handles, it feels a lot more luxurious than before. So all in all, this is a limousine that is actually good to drive, comfortable at the back and something you should consider buying if you are looking for a car in this class.

Now, BMW India has a loaded year coming up. The new X4 has just come onto the market as has the new (and brilliant) M2, and the X5 and X7 are on their way shortly, the new 3-series is also on its way and the refreshed 7-series is still a few months away. It will be worth the wait though. While I drove the 750Li, which has a 4.4-litre V8 that produces 530 horsepower, India will likely get fewer options. There will be the veritable favourite, the 730Ld with its three-litre diesel motor producing 265 horsepower. There will also be the 745Le, which is BMW’s plug-in hybrid variant, more of which in a later column and the top-of-the-range, 6.5 litre V12 engined, 585 horsepower 760Li, which is used by billionaires and politicians alike (the Prime Minister’s fleet has this car). There is a minute possibility that BMW India might bring more powerful variants of the diesels as well the M750Li that I drove, the 7-series is sold in 740Ld and 750Ld specifications in Europe, but that depends on the market although prices will not change dramatically from the current model.