Fast Facts

Verdict:
Having fully re-embraced sportiness without forsaking comfort, the all-new 7 Series is a fantastically complete car that defines luxury motoring

Unfeasibly nimble, storming engine, supreme refinement and top-notch quality

Wind noise rears its head at high speed, and there are only two seats in the back

BMW has a new flagship, and the sporty result is obviously the fruit of some deep soul-searching at Munich

By Leow Ju-Len in Dresden, Germany

THE FACE IS instantly recognisable and so, to an extent, is the svelte shape. But the body? It’s implausibly large.

That’s because it belongs to the all-new BMW 7 Series, and finding such sleek, sinewy lines on a flagship limo is a sure sign that the thinkers at Munich have decided to welcome their lifelong friend Sportiness back with both arms.

The huge, low-hanging kidney grilles look ready to hoover up the road ahead, while a pronounced crease line running from bonnet to tail-lamp introduces a sense of lithe, toned athleticism to the car’s flanks. There’s a coupe-like sweep to the roofline, too, as it swoops down racily to meet the boot.

It’s all very far removed from the avant-garde lines of BMW’s last flagship. Indeed, the new 7 is very much out with the bold and in with the tried-and-true.

One look at the cabin tells you as much – whereas the last 7 employed a tiny stalk behind the steering wheel for the transmission lever, the new car has a more conventional item, in a conventional place. It’s a much sportier place to have a gearlever, says BMW. But it’s also a sign that the company decided that some things just didn’t work with the old car.

One engineer, who should probably remain nameless for his career’s sake, admitted to CarBuyer that customers sometimes fingered the last model’s gearlever when they were looking for the wiper stalk.

Amazingly, he also mentioned that mounting to old car’s front seat adjusters on the transmission tunnel caused some of the heftier American customers to brush their thighs against it, with unintended results. So adjusting the front seats now entails reaching down the side to fiddle with normal seat adjusters, the kind you’ll find on everyone else’s car.

The new 7 Series won’t be accused of being radical, then, but given how the last model polarised opinion, that’s probably a good thing.

Still, that’s not to say it plays it safe entirely. The new car (codenamed F01 for the standard length and F02 for long-wheelbase) exudes far more sportiness than its rivals, not just in terms of its muscular proportions but in terms of the technologies it employs.

This is no truer than in the top-of-the-line 750Li, which has already made a sneak appearance in Singapore. It’s this version we drove at the car’s press launch.