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2003 BMW 7 Series Luxury Sport Sedan
…Continued
BMW moves decisively into the luxury market with a car of the future
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BMW has had a long tradition. While most other car companies have continually reinvented themselves over the years, BMW has been dedicated to sporty handling and performance, even as they branched into the luxury and utility areas. The new E65, as the 7-series flagship is called internally, will set the direction for the future of BMW luxury and technology.
As expected, the next 7-Series is completely new but is not a styling revolution, with the traditional arch-shaped roof and generous glazing, despite the ruckus the rear treatment has received from the German press. The front and rear are more rounded, massive, but not fat with a curve swooping down from the character line to ground the car at both ends. It manages to appear both elegant and sporty, and the 7-series comes across well as a driver's car. It has the traditional lidded (and very effective!) Bi-Xenon headlamps, eyebrow neon turn signals and new distinctive diagonal rear lights. And it is that back end that has created the controversy.
Designer Chris Bangle points out that shorter, more lifestyle efficient cars tend to have high rear ends for aerodynamic and trunk space benefits. He could have wedged the design as so many others have, or penned other tail light treatments like Volvo's S80, but by leaving a lower character line he enlarged the rear window glass, and provided a wide trunk opening. You'll have to decide whether it is different or unsettling.
One of the problems with large luxury cars is that they are expected to have a large number of sophisticated features to pamper (mollycoddle?) their owners. The upshot of sophisticated audio systems (better than most home stereos), global communication links, GPS navigation systems, and climate control units (that rival those found in computer rooms) is that all of these require oodles of interfaces with the driver. Buttons proliferate -- often small, hidden and nigh on indecipherable, emblazoned with hieroglyphics that can only be translated with a Rosetta stone in the guise of an Owner's Manual (and who reads those anyway.)
Buyers expect these features. After all how else do you distinguish a $70,000+ automobile from an upstart, affordable Hyundai XG350? BMW presents a minimalist cockpit, copying the interior themes shown in the Z9, avoiding the complexity of so many luxury cars. One competitor has 79 switches for the driver - and more for each other occupant - and that does not count levers and knobs! (I didn't have that many in the jet fighter I flew in the 60s, and it had bombs and missiles to play with!)
Although the two traditional round gauges remain, the previous clumsy center console is replaced with an eight function central display, accessible to and controllable by both the driver and the front passenger with the computer inspired iDRIVE knob, designed with an emphasis on intuitive operation.
BMW seems to have found a good answer to driver information overload. Using an oversized control (think of the wash cycle knob on a washing machine) front seat occupants can control all of the major systems of the vehicle; climate, communication, entertainment, and navigation, plus four other secondary features. The knob rotates, shifts in all direction and depresses to select features and displays settings in a hooded center screen that is quite visible in most lighting situations. The knob also has 'feedback', so if you attempt to do something that is not permissible the knob resists your motions. And that 'feedback' changes from function to function.
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