This past week I was able to enjoy a day with BMW’s new grand tourer for people who hate the wind: the 6-Series 650i Coupé.
The closest thing I can compare the BMW 650i Coupé to is a mid-1990s cigarette boat. Both have a bonnet longer than a house; provide seating for four but will probably never take more than two; unleash their power in equal amounts of force and noise; and will cost you more than a private school education.
While the 6-Series Convertible has been around for a few months already, the coupé version is a more recent addition, even though I have always wondered why the market needs both a convertible and coupé configuration when it comes to cars like these.
When you are paying this kind of money (somewhere north of R1,1-million before you start adding those features), you might as well have the option to use it with the roof down, opposed to the very permanently enclosed coupé. After all, the days of convertibles being a hassle to own are pretty much over.
But the coupé is an option for anyone who wants it, and it’s what I’m driving today.
This 6-Series is very important for BMW because it is a showcase for the brand, and needs to perform a public lobotomy to overwrite the memory of the not-so-well received previous 6-Series’ styling.
In that regard, it actually does very well: the car is extremely handsome from the outside, with a distinctly different detailing compared to the rest of the BMW brand, but not to the extent that you feel you’re being clubbed with a pick axe.
It also grows very quickly on you, which is a feature that seems to be common to all of BMW’s new cars. I experienced something similar when I encountered the latest 1-Series recently (from not being able to look at it, to now not minding it) and the 5-Series (now officially prettier than the previous Mercedes-Benz E-Class, which used to be the best looking luxury saloon around).
The interior has a familiar feel to it in that the design approach has been lifted from the current 5-Series, but it’s still sufficiently different to underline the big coupé’s individual identity. The central display, as well as the climate control panel and old-style media controls are all bigger; the gear selector and iDrive have a piano black finish which is very sexy; and the instrument cluster now has more drama at the bottom in the form of some racy red lines.
The cabin is also absolutely massive, with a huge amount of metal and wood and leather wrapped and inlaid into the myriad of surfaces around you. While this does give you the feeling of space and luxury, it also reminds you just how damn’ big the 6-Series is.
Luckily the 650i comes standard with PDC with surround view cameras (the best PDC money can buy, in my opinion) which gives you a bird’s eye view of the space around you when parking, and makes urban parking if not easier, then at least feasible in this car.
Pilot it through corners though, and it feels nimble and light, a trait that made me fall in love with the 5-Series I drove. But on this 6-Series, the steering seems to load up just a tad too late. I’d often enter a corner, only to significantly adjust the degree of lock required to actually make it into the bend. This is better in Sport mode, but not excellent.
On the subject of driving modes, the 650i coupé has the traditional Comfort / Sport / Sport+ settings, but also an added Comfort+ which, if Sport is red and Comfort is blue, is personified by the colour ‘tanned beige’. The ride is soft to the point of being sloppy, making travelling at speed an exercise in bravery.
Sport+ on the other hand is equally mental, because it can now not be selected without disengaging traction control (or what I assume is actually a racier setting for the Dynamic Stability Control), meaning that you need to be extremely gentle on the throttle or else risk re-enacting a manoeuvre from Swan Lake on Ice.
But if you are able to contain your right foot, you will be rewarded with 300 kW of turbocharged V8 power, and the resulting eye-popping G-forces. From standstill, the 650i coupé is crushingly quick, making its claimed 4,9 seconds 0-100km/h time seem conservative.
In summary the 650i coupé is comfortable, and quick, and quite good at both, in theory making this 6-Series the perfect car. Unfortunately it’s not. Just as it is not cool anymore to fly around the waves in a 40-foot power boat, moustache waving in the wind, big and loud grand tourers are not the desirable objects they use to be.
As a drivers’ car, the BMW is incredible and very rewarding but if you, like most South Africans, consider driving around town to be a spectator sport, then the 650i coupé is probably not what you’re after.
