Here's good news for all you CEOs, chairmen of the board, rock stars, MVPs of the NBA, and assorted dot-com millionaires: You can now buy a BMW 7-Series sedan with features formerly found only in armored personnel carriers.
I am not making this up, as Dave Barry would say. For the 2000 model year, Bavarian Motor Works is offering its 740iL and 750iL flagship sedans as "light armored vehicles."Clearly, being rich is fraught with hazards these days. Did John D. Rockefeller or J. Pierpont Morgan need to drive around in armored cars? Certainly not. In the old days, people respected men who had made it big. Today, people lob grenades at them.
Speaking of which, the Panzer Package (I did make that up) includes no offensive weaponry: no rocket launchers, no 50-caliber machine gun poking its muzzle out of the twin-kidney grille, no SAM missiles hanging from the undercarriage. Only 007 gets the really good stuff.
What you get for an additional $33,000 is body panels lined with Aramide, a fiber-reinforced armor plating; bullet "resistant" glass, (whatever happened to bullet "proof" glass?); run-flat tires; four-passenger seating instead of five (why this makes the car safer is left unexplained); and a "multifunction rear armrest" (Aha! That must be what occupies the middle seat space) that, among other things, controls the onboard computer and houses the onboard phone with which one may summon the cavalry when under attack.
The armoring package is available only on the 740iL and 750iL models, propelling their sticker prices to $99,970 and $124,970, respectively.
Which makes this week's test car, a 2000 BMW 740i, something of a loss leader with its base price of $62,400.
What a deal. If you figure the chances of your being targeted by terrorists are slim, and you seldom carry anyone over 6 feet tall in your back seat, you can save from $37,000 to $62,000 and still tool around in what many people believe to be the world's finest motor car.
If you're not a Bimmophile, the "L" in 740iL means it's the long-wheelbase version (5.5 inches longer wheelbase), which essentially translates into more backseat leg room. My tester was the standard wheelbase car, but most people would find its rear seat sufficiently commodious.
The BMW 7-Series was redone for the 1998 model year so there isn't a lot new in the 2000 version other than some additional standard equipment, new colors, lower-emission engines and a Sport Package option that adds $2,600 to the bottom line.
One could ask why a Sport Package should be an option on "The Ultimate Driving Machine," especially one that costs more than most families' annual income, but it probably makes no difference because this is a segment of the market where price is pretty much a moot point. It's hard to imagine buyers at this level haggling over $2,600, but not being a rich person I can't say for sure.
The Sport Package enhances what is already the world's best-handling full-size sedan by adding massive, 18-inch wheels shod with performance tires, a shorter final drive ratio for faster acceleration when the light turns green, a torque converter that also assists launching the vehicle quicker and some suspension bits that make cornering even more amusing.
Contour sport seats, a Steptronic shift system that allows for semi-manual shifting of the 5-speed automatic transmission, and some redwood interior trim pieces complete the package.
The destination charge of $570 and a gas guzzler tax of $1,700 brought the bottom line of my tester to $67,270. The 740i guzzles premium fuel at a rate of 15 mpg in city driving and 21 on the highway, which would be quite good in a sport utility vehicle or pickup truck but is considered profligate for a passenger car by the Feds, a hypocritical double-standard if there ever was one.
It goes without saying, I presume, that the 740i is loaded with luxury and convenience gadgetry, some of which are useful in daily driving but many of which exist only because they are expected in a car of this class. Trouble is, once you've set all the power gizmos to your liking, you never touch them again, so they strike me as a waste of money.
As for the GPS satellite navigation system, I didn't even turn it on. I've played around with enough of these to know that they don't work very well, tend to divert attention from the road and can even get you lost in a strange town. Several times I have had them tell me to flip a U-turn in the middle of the freeway.
The power plant? Only wonderful. Engines don't get any better than the 282 horsepower, 4.4 -liter, V8 under the hood of the 740i, which can launch the 2-ton-plus sedan from a standing start to 60 mph in under seven seconds, emitting a muted but still thrilling sound unique to 32-valve motors.
As with all BMWs, the controls are difficult to decipher without reading the thick owner's manual and/or watching the videos that come with it. I've complained about this before, but for some reason they haven't done anything about it yet. Maybe next year.
E-mail (max@desnews.com) or fax 801-236-7605. Max Knudson's autos column runs each Friday.