2006 BMW 750 Test Drive

The German Giant

Yank tanks are out, but German ones are in. BMW's freshened flagship 760Li sedan defies its size with athletic moves.

Behind the Wheel

The 760Li will baffle drivers who have never experienced its complex iDrive electronics, but five minutes of instruction should at least get you rolling. Door and ignition locking/unlocking can be keyless, controlled by a fob that merely needs to be in your pocket, purse or briefcase. The engine starts and stops with the press of a button, and the electronic parking brake also only requires a button push — there’s no conventional handle or lever. The 760 can be made to automatically set its parking brake every time it comes to a complete stop, whether briefly at a stoplight or at the conclusion of a drive.

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The shifter is a small, awkward stalk on the steering column that has only three positions — neutral, drive and reverse — though all six of the automatic transmission's speeds can also be manually upshifted or downshifted by pressing buttons on the steering wheel. Unfortunately, the shifter and the wiper stalk look virtually identical, and several times I washed the windshield instead of backing up.

Whenever you do put the car into reverse, the electronic iDrive system displays a colorful park-assist screen, with areas behind and ahead of the car progressively turning green, yellow and red as you approach obstructions. This is particularly useful for a large car that will, frankly, be driven by people whose necks don't swivel 180 degrees as easily as they did when we were younger.

All four of the 760Li's spacious seats power adjust through a seemingly infinite number of angles and configurations and can be heated and ventilated, as well.

The infamous iDrive computer-cursor knob on the 760's center console provides menu-managed access to a huge number of the car's capabilities. With the '06 model, BMW has at least provided redundant, dedicated knobs and switches for the climate-control system and the radio/single-disc, in-dash CD player, and has simplified the screen display with four color-coded main menus. These tweaks come as a response to flak from customers and the media about how baffling the original iDrive system was and prove that some of us still live in the analog age.

There are times when the iDrive makes you want to pull a Russell Crowe — rip it out and throw it against a wall — but there are also times when, after a few days of fiddling, you realize, "Hey, this makes sense…."Try it, be patient and maybe you'll end up loving it. OK, maybe not.

Despite its bulk, "stately" and "sedate" are not words we'd use to describe the 760Li. This is a car that can quickly take intrepid drivers to cornering limits they wouldn't dare explore further unless on a racetrack. With a surfeit of power and torque from its 6.0-liter V12, it can be driven very aggressively — if that's your choice. And the harder you push, the more firmly its suspension settles in. It's obvious this is a car engineered by people who'd rather be building Herculean M5 sport sedans and lithe Z4 roadsters, rather than limousines — even if they do create an occasional tank.