Instrumented Test
The chrome “V-12” badge on the cover of the owner’s manual is the only place you’ll find a direct reference to the BMW 760Li’s engine configuration. Not a single exterior emblem declares the lofty cylinder count. In fact, the mightiest 7 looks essentially identical to its lesser siblings, even after the lineup’s subtle refresh for 2013. Whatever. Buyers who plunk down roughly $50,000 more than the cost of a V-8 750Li don’t need some stinking badge to tell the world they’re driving something special. Indeed, demonstrating the 760Li’s superiority is simply a matter of flooring the gas pedal.
The twin-turbocharged, 6.0-liter V-12 under the hood shuttles a burly 535 hp and 553 lb-ft of torque through a new-for-’13 eight-speed automatic. Rear drive is the only option with the V-12, as the driving gods intended. Ripping away from a stop, the 760Li reels in the horizon like Bill Dance hauling in a smallmouth, and acceleration is so rapid that the head-up display’s digital speed indicator can’t keep up. Numbers skip from 32 mph to 45, 67, 131, and so on, right up to the governed 155-mph top speed.
We hit 60 mph in a ridiculous-for-this-size 4.3 seconds, and 130 mph arrives in fewer than 16. We’ve tested an A8L 4.0T to 60 in fewer than four seconds, but that car features launch-aiding Quattro and weighs some 500 fewer pounds. This Bimmer catches up and passes it above benchmark speed, as it should for its price. Bend the 760 into a turn, and it feels somewhat smaller than it is, but there’s no denying its substantial heft. It can nevertheless be considered nimble—and newly standard active anti-roll bars help maintain a reasonably flat cornering attitude—although the steering lacks the ultimate precision of, say, a Jaguar XJ’s. That’s a more rewarding sled to pilot than the 7-series, and it placed ahead of a prerefresh 750Li in a comparison test won by an A8L. In terms of other 7s, this V-12 car isn’t as racy as the slightly more-powerful Alpina B7, but it is more expensive.
A $4000 M Sport package is available—it’s largely a cosmetic upgrade, but does add performance tires—but our car instead packed the $5200 BMW Individual package, which brings Merino leather seats; a faux-suede headliner; “BMW Individual” badging for the wheel caps, decklid trim, and door sills; darkened exterior trim; and 19-inch wheels with performance tires. (The M Sport and Individual packs can’t be ordered together.)
We further basked in a $3700 Bang & Olufsen audio system, a $2700 rear-seat entertainment system, and a $2600 night-vision camera and display (surprisingly excellent at spotting cops hiding in shadowy medians). This 760 also came with a $500 parking assistant, $2400 active cruise control with collision mitigation, and a $1700 gas-guzzler tax. Total: $159,395. Excluding the BMW Individual upholsteries and interior trims, the only option our car lacked was the $200 massaging rear seats. We were crestfallen.
The, ahem, affordable 12-cylinder luxury-sedan universe is, as it has always been, a small one. And since Jaguar ditched the XJ's V-12 option over a decade ago, the 760Li’s only direct competition lies with the Mercedes-Benz S600 and Audi A8L W12. In a rational world, the 760Li and its competitors really don’t have a point. Their V-8 counterparts are plenty powerful, lighter, far less expensive, and look nearly identical, and they’re often quicker and nimbler, to boot.
But rationality and restraint have little place in this segment. Except in regard to badging, of course.
