The 2013 BMW 750i L reviewed

“Shotgun!” Normally I’m sprinting across the parking lot way before anybody even gets any keys handed to them. Obviously I want to have the first driving stint as a journalist at an overseas global car launch event, because they usually pair us up in test cars and I’d rather be the one to cook the brakes and ruin the tyres than having to contend with that and sloppy seconds.

But this time I casually stood around next to the rear door of the new 2013 BMW 750i L, until a BMW minder finally got the point and opened it for me, ushering me into the car’s reclining sofa. Ah, yes, this is how you test drive a 7 Series… I don’t mind if I don’t get any wheel time at all. Which I probably won’t, because ever since Soviet Russia dropped the Soviet bit, far too many people in St Petersburg are able to afford cars. And that’s why the roads around this ‘Venice of the North’ are as clogged as a Nascar fan’s arteries.

I can report that the new and improved BMW 750i L has excellent road holding characteristics during a 2.7kph lane change maneuver. I’m sure it also effortlessly passes the Russian version of the moose test: the hungover- hobo test. In addition, I was well impressed with the car’s ability to come to an assured and composed stop during the traffic-jam 0-5-0kph acceleration and braking assessment.

Eventually I dozed off to the melting wails of a Russian radio political debate. But things spiraled out of control and some Kalashnikov fire woke me, only I found it was the state of Russian country roads, in need of serious repair ever since the Luftwaffe left their mark. The BMW tried admirably to cushion its precious rear-seat cargo from the trembling torture, but there’s only so much sophisticated self-levelling air suspension can do about driving over a ploughed field.

No really, when Russians decide to close a section of highway, they divert you through the local pumpkin patch. This took an hour and a half because not all Russians drive Hummer H1s. But one cretin digging his own way through us all certainly does. Most people still keep their hands warm in winter by pushing broken-down Ladas with rear window heating. That is to say, they drive old Russian cars. Even the new 2012 Lada something or other looks like it was approved by Yeltsin.

This is good for the natural road hierarchy, because me in the back of a 7 Series, long wheelbase model to boot, gets right of way over everything except maybe boats. Russians respect the pecking order, and submit to LED headlighted, front apron redesigned,  twin-grilled, snarling German barreling down a derestricted St Petersburg highway with satisfying obedience. One Lada swerved so fretfully out of my fast lane that I saw its chassis flex into a pretzel.

Speaking of derestricted highways, this is only true in St Petersburg with a slight interpretation of the rules. For example, if there are no signs stating the speed limit, never you mind that the BMW’s head-up display unit perfectly legibly presents you with the limit of whatever road you’re on, because the road itself features no physical signs with a limit, meaning you can logically deduce that to be a road without limits.

So when we got right out of town, the BMW behaved like a first-class jet cabin, in as much as you know someone somewhere is manning the controls and making you arrive at your destination, but it’s none of your business because you’re busy spreading wild sturgeon caviar onto your blini while enjoying a back rub built into the seat. Actually there is a difference – I’m not quite convinced a Learjet could possibly be as quiet as the 750i L at top whack. Stretching past 250kph like a bungee cord just getting started, the 750i feels like it has enough spring left in it to hit 300. But we did get some WRC-style air time at the bottom of a dip crossed by two gentle  bumps.

The 750i soared like a real Learjet - it had finally really become what it pretends to be – and thudded down to Terra Firma extremely anticlimactically -  which means not firmly at all. However I had decided this technique sacrifices far too many dropped wild sturgeon caviar eggs, and trade on these babies is banned, don’t you know… Speed freaks and street racers are big in Russia, with the partakers usually bombing about in burbling boxer-engined Subarus, and Mitsubishi Galants and Evos, Skylines… They’ve obviously thought about this, as four-wheel drive comes in handy around here during winter.

It’s a free-for-all, mostly because the Police don’t seem to do anything about road laws. I love Russia. Every once in a while however, it’s a good idea to succumb and make way for these road-racing lunatics, however much it hurts me to behave like a poverty-spec Lada in a grand BMW. I’d rather be a plebian for a second, than have a Subaru sticking out of my boot. Also, I’ve seen Russian dash-camera clips on YouTube – they all carry pickaxes and aren’t afraid to use them.

The BMW is a secure haven from which to witness the madness of Russia though. Cabin silence was only broken once, when a bumper-less (a racing scrap, no doubt) Dodge Challenger burned about 150 euros worth of low-octane Russian fuel with a tarmac-stripping wheelspin and Richard Petty style left turn around St Isaac Square. Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, sitting on a horse in the middle of the square, had the best view in the house.

My view from the sprawling rear seat of the 7 Series wasn’t bad either. Both front headrests have huge 9.2in screens attached to their backs, with iDrive controls atop the rear bench centre armrest. In Russia they have the Internet, only it’s in Russian (and everybody on it carries pickaxes, I’m told), but you can check your mail and catch up on the news from the comfort of your BMW 750i L’s rear seat, scroll the satellite navigation map, electrically recline the seat, or just turn up the volume on that Russian radio political debate when it starts getting a bit heated. You just know one of them will be brandishing a pickaxe any time now…  And you’ll get all the sickly details through 16 speakers on the 1,200-watt Bang & Olufsen surround sound system.

Apart from the traffic and some dubious road-building (the ring-road is rather nice, actually), the Venice of the North is a truly beautiful city. Its canals don’t even stink, unlike the original’s. Speaking of originals, the initial 2009 F01 fifth-generation 7 Series had 400 horses to call on in the 750i, but this updated car’s 4.4-litre turbo V8 ups that to 444bhp, with an extra 50Nm of torque on top of the old 600Nm as well. When my chauffeur, and fellow motoring scribe, told me that I spat out my wild sturgeon caviar. What am I doing in the back seat?

A glance at the press material informed me that although there’s extra power across the range (except in the less-powerful and irrelevant Hybrid model), it was efficiency that spurred this mid-life update. Touches of chrome to the exterior, and a new fully digital display that changes colours depending on which driving mode you’re in (Eco mode is best, rewarding your driving with readouts of kilometres of range ‘gained’) are part of the facelift too, as are new leathers in the cabin, optimised noise levels, and 3D graphics.

Yet BMW spent most of its time on the bits you don’t see, like completely revaluating the engine line-up and incorporating some chassis wizardry to help ride comfort. The BMW 750i L indeed rides almost as well as a Mercedes-Benz S-Class now, thanks to new modified rubber bearings and new dampers. It also reaches 0-100kph in less than five seconds but you should probably choose the all-wheel drive one if you regularly drive through pumpkin patches. I’ve decided I’m staying in the back. My blini are getting cold.