BMW 7 Series, not just about speed

In the world of automobiles, the focus is now on smart self driving cars.

And among traditional cars, breaking the speed limit seems always to be the talking point of the flagship models.

How much speed the model in discussion can gain within the first few seconds of starting the engine is one thing always mentioned in the literature the company provides.

The newly launched BMW 7 Series seems to ignore all of these traditional parameters when the carmaker was introducing their latest offer at Radission BLU in Dhaka.

Of course, there is information available on how much speed the 7 series can gain within first few seconds (100km/hour in 6 seconds, mentioned only once), but it will ‘drive’ your thoughts somewhere else.

The car can be parked without the driver being inside the car, simply by using a remote.

Sensors will measure the space around and will park the car safely. Once it’s inside the garage, the engine will automatically shut off.

Kind of a 007 feel, ha? Well, coincidentally the series is 7, but ironically the country of its origin is Germany!

Like the British spymaster style, the car manufacturer also adopted from the American lifestyle giant, which now has a dispute with the US spy/law agencies on the smart device encryption war.

 Probably this is the first sedan having gesture control. Take the hands in front of the dashboard, and use your hand movements to increase or decrease volume, receive or ignore phone calls.

 “This car has an iPadlike dedicated touch tablet that will let you have several key controls at your fingertips. The owner can open/close the sky roof and control the light-colour theme with this smart tablet,” revealed during the demonstration.

“With the help of the remote ‘key’ you can even start the air-conditioning while you are as far as 300 feet from the car. It’s the same key that parks the vehicle,” said M Abdur Rahman, assistant manager of sales at Executive Motors, the importer of the brand. Both the devices are touch sensitive.

The car has a certain part of the structure made of carbon fibres, relieving its engine of pulling an extra 130 kilograms. We have seen carbon fibre used before in Lamborghinis, Ferraris and some other sports cars, but in a sedan it looks like the trend is taking a shape and BMW is leading the way.

Surprisingly though the car is shipped with 2 litre engines, unlike its predecessors, and yet it can create more torque than the previous 3L engines and that helps the car become more environment-friendly.

The BMW 7 Series was launched at the Radission BLU in Dhaka on Tuesday. Photo: Hassan Bipul

“We have decided to make this the official car for the German head of mission,” said the German Chargé d'affaires to Bangladesh Ferdinand von Weyhe who officially inaugurated the car’s launch in this country.

“You can have your laptop on the foldable tray and work, listen to music from the 1400 watt sound system through its six inch woofers or even enjoy a back massage,” said one presenter.

Weyhe added another cool feature or reason especially for Bangladeshi’s to have one of these in the garage.

“You know, I was wondering if there was a market for this car. Where in Bangladesh can you drive this beautifully crafted baby? Obviously you cannot drive this car from Gulshan to downtown Dhaka at 150 kilometres per hour. But then I thought the traffic situation won’t feel as horrible sitting inside this gem!”

The company has already got order for 27 cars of this new make 730LI models , said one manager dealing with client.

There are some other models in this series and will be imported once there are orders from the clients and they will join the fleet of about 700 BMW’s running in the streets of Bangladesh.

Want to make one yours? Well, certainly that depends on the depth of your pocket. The price of the 730LI model starts from 25 million. Don't get panicked yet, that’s in Bangladeshi currency. The price may go up to 35 million depending on the customization you prefer.