BMW 640d GRAN COUPÉ M SPORT
It may be all right for Germany but you’ll have to ease off on the speed here
AFEW years ago, a then 76year-old aunt on holiday in Ireland from the US also wanted to visit friends who own a hotel on top of a relatively modest Alp in Bavaria. BMW very kindly told me to drop around to their media centre near Munich Airport, where ‘a car’ would be waiting for us to take on our trip. It turned out to be a 650i, and when we reached the autobahn, I floored it. ‘What speed are we doing?’ the aunt asked. ‘245 kilometres an hour,’ I replied. ‘What’s that in America?’ she asked. ‘Oh, around 150 miles an hour,’ I said. There was a pause and I was waiting to get it in the neck. All she said was: ‘I love it!’
So, the joy of a big, beefy BMW is that no matter what age the passengers are, they always seem to enjoy it and they never feel their safety is compromised. If we had been driving a run-of-the-mill rental saloon, I’m not sure she would have been quite so benign.
The downside of a big, beefy BMW, though, is that not every country is Germany. Here, I would have been doing almost exactly twice the legal speed limit and I probably would be scribbling this with a pointy rock on a wall in Mountjoy.
I have to be honest. I never really understand why anyone here buys a high-performance car. When you can accelerate from a standing start to 100km/h in 5.4 seconds, what do you do next? When you know the car can reach an electronically limited 250km/h – and probably outpace a Perseid meteor if left unfettered – how could you ever be happy trundling along at a pedestrian 120km/h? That is my only problem with the six-cylinder 640d Gran Coupé. It packs 313bhp under the bonnet, and hurtles you to 100km/h so fast your eyes water, but you hardly notice. You are so cossetted in the leather lap of luxury, listening to music and thinking that life doesn’t get much better, you almost forget the whole world outside. That’s lovely when you’re on an autobahn, but not such great fun if you spot a camera van on the R742 just outside Courtown (it’s always there, by the way – give them a wave and tell them I said to say hello).
There are three variants in the 6 Series range, the Coupé, Gran Coupé and Convertible, and this big one easily is my favourite. Stonking great muscular cars went out of fashion with the bust, and banks that clearly had no sense of humour repossessed a few, but they’re creeping back. This one is so aggressively feline, you’d be nervous driving it anywhere near an American dentist. It’s lusciously sleek, with a redesigned kidney grille and new front and rear aprons. There’s a bigger tail- pipe, new LED headlights, new optional 20inch alloys, and a redesigned cabin with ambient lighting.
Though this really is a four-seater, you could squeeze a fifth person in for shorter journeys, but to be honest I just wanted it all to myself. There are so many toys, so much connectivity, such a dazzling Harmon- Kardon sound system, you actually feel like you’re slumming it when you get back home.
On the road, the power is effortless. The eight- speed automatic box feels as smooth as silk being pulled gently over butter. The steering is almost fingertip controlled. The grip is like shaking hands with a Mormon. On the straight, it soars. In corners, it is as sinuous as a melting Terminator. Above all, it just looks, well, extraordinary. My test car came in Mediterranean blue and was as elegant as any car I’ve driven, with a low silhouette and wide tracks.
It was fitted with lots of extras that totalled €12,307 (that’s only a few hundred euro short of a new Toyota Aygo), but the package is irresistible. You get head-up and speed-limit display (foiled again, lads!), heated steering wheel, soft-close doors (pffft), Nappa leather seats, reversing camera, sunroof, lumbar support, heated seats, surround view, internet connectivity, M steering and aerodynamic bodystyling, and piano black fascia. If you looked left and saw a pianist playing Strangers In The Night, it couldn’t feel any more like the lobby of a five-star hotel.
So, yes, you might have got the feeling that I liked it. At over 117 grand, the only way I’d ever own one would be if I won the lottery. And if I did, I’d also be immediately on the hunt for a big house in Germany. With its own ramp directly onto the autobahn.