Who's your daddy?

If you’ve ever looked at a car and thought it to be beautiful, if you’ve ever enjoyed the sensation of pushing your right foot down on the accelerator, if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to cut footloose and kick off your Sunday shoes without having to worry about the resultant cop car chase, then save up for a ticket to Germany, hire a decent car and look out for the unrestricted patches of tar on the autobahn.

For those who haven’t experienced it, autobahn means “motorway” or “freeway” and not every single kilometre of it is unrestricted.

Roughly a third of Germany’s freeways have no speed limit and when you do come across those rare stretches where you see a sign that has a black circle with three or four black lines drawn through it, you’re allowed to put foot and you’re allowed to enjoy it.

But beware, because if you’re driving a car such as the 6-litre V12 BMW 760Li, then you will reach its top speed of 250kph in the very short time it takes you to appreciate how other drivers move out of your way without you having to flash your lights at them; and while you find yourself marvelling at how organised German drivers are, you will notice a speed limit coming up and you will then witness something rather extraordinary.

Everyone slows down and everyone obeys the speed limit. Almost all the drivers we encountered were courteous, knew the rules of the road and drove in an orderly fashion.

There was a great deal of construction along the autobahn just outside Munich, where we were driving during the international launch of BMW’s flagship 760i and 760Li, and on one particular patch my driving partner and I were pleasantly surprised by the car’s crisply responsive brakes when we had to slow down from 250kph to 120kph and then 60kph in a very short space of time.

Germany’s accident rate on the unrestricted stretches is no worse than on the restricted stretches, so the idea of speed being deadly doesn’t always apply, especially not when licensed drivers are driving roadworthy cars responsibly and are slowing down when told to do so.

While some people might want to travel along these unlimited sections in a car that inspires a visceral sense of fervour, I was happy to do it in supreme comfort, happy in the knowledge that, were I unlucky enough to come across a South African taxi driver trying to push me off the road, I’d have more airbags to keep me safe than JZ has spin doctors.

Beemer’s new Big Daddy is a gargantuan luxury sedan and the only version that will be available in South Africa is the 760Li, which is the long-wheel-base version powered by a 400kW, 750Nm twin-turbo engine that moves this heavyweight from 0 to 100kph in a blistering 4.6s.

When you consider that a sub-4s 0-100kph speed is the holy grail for most supercars (except the ludicrous Bugatti Veyrons and such), you’ll appreciate just how hard the technology in this car has to work to achieve its sprint time. Despite this, you never feel as though it’s making much of an effort—not even when you’re trying your best to unsettle it around twisty sections.

Using the revamped and oh-so-easy iDrive you can select the Sports Plus setting, which makes (among other things) the suspension firmer and allows the new eight-speed automatic gearbox to let the revs climb into the red zone before changing gears. Although it won’t display the agility of a two-seater sports car, the 760Li will nonetheless feel far more nimble and a little scary with this traction-off setting.

So when you feel like testing its handling, Sports Plus is the way to go, but Normal mode is about the best setting. Oddly, the Comfort mode made me most uncomfortable because the air suspension gave the car the characteristics of a sea-faring vessel and the sensation of wafting along the road had me feeling a tad seasick.

As expected, the interior is covered in plush leather and walnut trim in addition to features such as electronically adjustable rear seats, rear climate control and soft-closing doors.

The 760Li also benefits from BMW’s Efficient Dynamics with features such as brake energy regeneration.

Fuel consumption on a combined cycle is said to be in the region of 13-litres/100km, but if you’re a blue-lights brigade chauffeur attempting to break the sound barrier to get your boss to tea on time, then you’ll average about 20-litres/100km.

The R1,6-million uber-deluxe limo will be available here in November and given that South Africans have already placed orders for this car, it seems unlikely that BMW is going to struggle to sell the few units destined for our shores.