BMW 760i xDrive

Sometimes, as you slide into a car, you realize you’ve just met perfection. Sometimes you sink into a seat and it cuddles you in a way you haven’t been cuddled since early childhood. Sometimes the in-car sound system is so good that it feels like Christina Aguilera is standing in front of you - her entire four-octave vocal range ringing through. Sometimes a vehicle accelerates so smoothly that you may feel compelled to make a parallel to Tennessee whiskey. Sometimes a car is so quiet, and the ride so smooth, that you wonder if you’re even moving at all. Sometimes a manufacturer manages to put together an automobile that both thrills and relaxes you at the same time. All those sometimes is now - the vehicle is the BMW 760i.

What Is The BMW 760i?

The 7-series is the creme de la crop of the BMW lineup, the car that gets all the cool tech and features before the other BMWs get their turn. The 760 (note the “60”) is the pinnacle of the 7-series - the creme de la crop of the creme de la BMWs, if you will. So, when one maxes out a 760i with all the bells and whistles, one gets a very impressive automobile - something more akin to a limousine than a regular sedan.

Exterior

Let’s start from the outside, shall we? The dual tone paint job sets this 760 apart from most cars on the road. Say what you want – some don’t seem to like two-tone paint jobs – but the red on black absolutely gives this BMW an extra touch of flair.

The BMW 7-series has always been large, and this 760 is definitely no exception. It’s massive. When parked next to pretty much anything except full-size trucks, the BMW 760 wins the size contest. But such is often, or always, the case with the top-of-the-line ultra luxurious sedans. I’m thinking the Mercedes S-class, the Audi A8, and the like.

Even cars that are massive can still be well-rounded, smooth, and nicely find that middle ground between being too large and just fitting in. The BMW 760 straddles that line nicely. It’s not that it doesn’t stick out - of course it does, it’s a BMW 760! It’s massive with a two tone exterior, which in itself will catch some eyes. But it’s definitely not like many over-the-top supercars which turn EVERYONES’S head. You know, the fierce lines of a Lamborghini, for example.

That’s what I mean when I say a nice nice middle ground - those who know, know, and those who don’t know what they’re looking at, well they’ll maybe just give it a second glance. And isn’t that what this type of car is for? To arrive in style without screaming your name in everybody’s face. To arrive in comfort without showing up in some massive limousine. I would think so. I would definitely prefer this BMW 760i over both the Lambo or the limo.

Interior

While the exterior of the BMW 760 is at least somewhat inconspicuous, the interior is not. BMW has gone to great lengths to fine-tune any and all details inside this luxurious spaceship-like automobile. I say “spaceship” because there are so many cool and tech-y features that this vehicle is more like a spaceship than a car.

Bowers and Wilkins Stereo System

I’m very picky when it comes to audio systems - having spent time in the Mark Levinson systems in Lexus and other high-end audio systems - but I must say, this Bowers and Wilkins audio system, for an extra $4800 on an already expensive car, will definitely blow your mind.

The Bowers and Wilkins stereo system puts you front and center of whatever you’re listening to. With speakers pretty much everywhere, this audio system is able to reproduce music as it was produced in the first place. Obviously, there are speakers in the doors, in the ceiling, in front of you, and behind you - but they’re also in the headrests of the front seats. These headrest speakers are not there to blow your eardrums, they’re there to give an extra tone of excellence. And they do. Leaning back into the chair of the BMW 760 you will hear every note, every beat, and feel every flick of the bass.

Actually, on that note (pun intended), you’ll literally FEEL the bass in your back… Part of the Bowers and Wilkins system includes what they call a “4D experience” - they’ve added another dimension to the audio system. To further enhance your listening experience, you’ll feel a little discreet buzz in your lower back when the bass hits. This means that we are intentionally vibrating the car in tune to the music. Obviously nothing in the BMW 760 vibrates unintentionally. There’s nothing making any type of noise in the 760 that isn’t supposed to be making noise.

An interesting feature with the Bowers and Wilkins system is their “preview”-feature. BMW knows that the audio system is awesome, so they made sure to include a function to show you just how great it is. It’s only like half a minute long, with some visual effects on the infotainment screen to go with it, but I think I played that preview more times than I’d like to admit. It’s an amazing demonstration of what these speakers can do.

Smoke White

Our specific car has a very light interior. The smoke white full merino wool and leather combination makes for an insanely well-appointed luxury vehicle. The merino wool seats are couch-like, more than pretty much any other car I’ve been in. You don’t want to get out of this sedan.

Even though I really like leather - I have three kids and thus spend a lot of time wiping off the rear seats - I really fell in love with these merino wool surfaces - used for the seating surfaces, with the rest of the car glistening in a light colored leather. All of this is accentuated with a very cool design of the speaker covers and glass fiber inlays.

The very smooth lines throughout the car’s interior make it hard to keep your fingers off. It’s a marvel for the eyes, but the BMW 760 is also a marvel to touch. Everything is smooth and perfectly balanced. Everything is light on your fingertips. All the corners have been perfectly rounded… Pretty much everything and anything in the BMW 760i has been honed to perfection.

Safety & Convenience & Tech & Other Cool Features

With so many things to point out, it’s hard to keep this review to a manageable length. The BMW 760 has so many features included that I can’t list them all. Or if I did, you wouldn’t read the entire article anyway. Being the crème de le crop of the BMW lineup this vehicle has pretty much everything offered in any other vehicle that BMW produces.

An adaptive cruise control is offered in pretty much all BMWs - here it’s their latest iteration. The Driving Assistance Pro package includes an active driving assistant and a highway assist, the latter making this BMW a hands-off autonomous machine on the highway.

The Active Package for $3600 includes the Active Comfort Drive and the Active Role Stabilization systems. The latter does exactly what the name says, whilst the former is actually previewing what lies ahead of you to mitigate any bumps on the road.

The Rear Executive Lounge Seating package - for $7250 - includes a reclining seat and foot rest for the rear right seat, and an executive lounge rear console. It also includes something you don’t often see in stock vehicles - the BMW theater screen is a screen that is as wide as the interior of the car and that drops down from the ceiling. They don’t call it a theater screen for nothing.

To give the rear right seat the space needed to recline all the way, there is a button that actually folds the front passenger seat onto itself and moves it, forward, out of the way. Obviously nobody is sitting there at that time.

All the seats are equipped with a massage function - the front seats as well as the two outermost seats in the rear. All of them are insanely comfortable - with our without the massage going. There will be no fighting on who gets to sit up front. Actually, there might be fighting about who gets to sit in the rear right side luxury seat.

The Executive Package - another $3700 - includes automatic doors, crystal headlights, and the front massaging seats. The automatic doors take some time to get used to… You are used to actually opening and closing the doors - a superfluous skill in the BMW 760 as these doors close with the touch of buttons. Actually, the driver’s door will close once you put your foot on the brake, a nice touch indeed. If you don’t ever get used to that, you can turn that function off - I love it though. The fact that I can open and close all four doors individually from the screen is helpful when I am letting out, or welcoming in, my passengers.

As a final inclusion in this list of neat features that could probably be made almost infinitely long, I have to note the iPhone-sized screens embedded in the rear two doors. They are there to offer the rear seat occupants a slick way to access any and all of the features available to them.

Oh, one more thing… When you turn on the seat heaters it’s not only your butt and back getting the heat. Pretty much any and all surfaces of the interior of the BMW 760i heat up - in a car costing north of $160,000 thou shall not come in contact with any cold surfaces.

Driving Characteristics

The BMW 760i has a 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 with an insane amount of power - 536 horses and 553 pound feet of torque to be exact. And, to add a little more juice to it, this vehicle has a 48V mild hybrid system hooked up as well. While the hybrid system does add some juice and power, it also does keep the fuel consumption to a somewhat manageable level - 20 mpg combined.

BMW is known for their awesome - or should I say ULTIMATE? - driving machines, and the 760 is the epitome of that. The fact that the eight speed transmission has a sport setting and a launch control deviates a little bit from the plush interior where it seems you’re meant to enjoy a movie while cruising down the highway. The sport automatic transmission, with sport and manual shift modes and including the steering wheel mounted paddle shifters, are a superb match with the ginormous engine - if I floor it you’ll stop watching the movie and you’ll start giggling. Not the kind of giggle that a sports-car or a hyped up electric vehicle might cause, though. No, the BMW 760i accelerates so smoothly you wouldn’t believe how fast you’re going but for the speedometer. 0 to 60 mph in 4.1 seconds in this beast is no joke.

The BMW 760i is so big that it could - should? - handle like an oversized boat. I assure you it does not. I would even go so far as to say that the handling of the BMW 760 is extreme, given its massive size. It will grip the road in a way almost strange for a car this size. It will stay level through any tight cornering that you throw at it. Not that you’d be doing any extreme driving while people in the back are enjoying their tea and a movie, but on your way to pick up your next guest you can definitely have a lot of fun.

Summary

I never thought I would feel a need for the top-of-the-line luxury stands - mainly because I often look for function for a family of five, which the over-the-top luxury vehicles don’t always cater to… However, the BMW 760i is so fun to drive, so luxurious to sit in, such a masterpiece of engineering, that I wouldn’t be able to resist it, if I had a chance. But at $162,000 my wallet stands no chance.

The trunk is definitely big enough to haul around whatever your daily routine craves, and for the longer road trips you could stick a roof box on it. Not that I’ve ever seen a BMW 760i with a roof box, I’m just trying to convince myself that I should get one of these cars even though I often have a lot of stuff to go with my three kids in the rear seat.