A 5-day event at Punchestown for 7-Series

15 January 2002: In a five-day event at Punchestown Racecourse, Motor Import Ltd are this week showing off the new BMW flagship to almost 500 potential customers.

The 7-series car, which debuted at Frankfurt in September, is totally new, and packed with innovation both in engineering terms and creature comforts. In fact, owners will require a little more than the standard run-through of controls and switches, because apart from the basics of driving, BMW has totally re-thought the functions and usability of many old familiar switches.

For instance, there’s no mechanical operation of the parking brake. It is operated by a button on the dashboard. Simple push for ‘on’, simple push for ‘off’. And all entertainment, information and communication functions are handled by a single big knob on the central console along with a large screen in the dashboard.

Fairly extraordinary attention has been paid to ride comfort and handling. And if the previous 7-Series might have been a little short of rear room, this is not a charge which can be levelled at the new car, which has stacks of well-upholstered space and passenger conditions that were declared ‘excellent’ by a brace of our experienced journos, neither of whom realised just how bad were the mid-Kildare potholes over which they were being driven.

The new 7-Series has a pair of new V8 engines too, which have managed an average increase in power output of 14%, while at the same time fuel consumption has been cut by a similar factor. This has been achieved largely by the use of two proprietory BMW technologies - VALVETRONIC and VANOS - which control inlet and exhaust valve movements to an extraordinarily precise degree. The result is average fuel consumption of around the 26mpg mark.

We’ll leave precise details of the car to a more extended piece. But the last two figures are important - the 735i sells for eur eur 95,500 and the top-level 745i is eur 105,000.

January 2002