2020 BMW M760 Review

Few back seats in the automotive world measure up to the experience one can find in a fully optioned 2020 BMW M760i. It comes with the territory of being a luxury flagship car. Anybody who spends $181,975 on a vehicle should expect nothing but excellence, and that’s exactly what this 2020 7 Series delivers in many aspects.

The best seat in the house is directly behind the passenger seat (though we’ve come to love being behind the wheel, too). From here, you’re just one button press away from total serenity, and likely sleep. Check out what I’m talking about below.

But wait! Now you’re sitting way too far away to use the fancy iDrive touch tablets on the seat in front of you (one of the many additions from the $5,750 Executive Package). Don’t fret. That’s what the Samsung tablet sitting in between the two rear passenger seats is for. All of the functions you could spin through on the seatback tablet are also available within the supplemental tablet (it even has a V12 emblem permanently stamped in the top left corner). And those functions are many in number. 

You are the master of the music from the rear seats. Any radio station or music source can be changed from the back — you can even skip forward or backward through songs being played through Apple CarPlay. Say you want a good steak after a long, hard day of being a rich executive. Send a navigation “suggestion” up to the main infotainment system to your restaurant of choice. The driver will need to “accept” your suggestion, but really, do they have a choice? You can even eat the steak on the center console’s fold-out tray. I don’t suggest ordering this gorgeous white leather option if you’re prone to eating messy meals in the back seat, though.

All of the lighting, climate and seat climate/massage controls have hard buttons available, but you can also use any of the tablets to do the same thing. Unless you’re trying to choose the type of massage (there are many), I think the hard buttons are easier to use. Though, the climate control and lighting buttons (for the vertical lamps on the B-pillar) are a bit of a reach if you’re in the lounge position. The screens are just smaller versions of iDrive with fewer options found within. That means they run quickly and smoothly, but take some time to learn.

Only exceedingly tall individuals will find any kind of a size constraint in the 7 Series. Even the taller among us at Autoblog found it to be plentiful in space. The step-in height is also luxurious. BMW mounts the seats up higher than typical sedan height to make the fall down into them less abrupt. It’s not quite crossover height, but you won’t be struggling to step in and out of the back of this car.

It hardly bears mentioning, but the materials quality is top notch. The soft-touch suede ceiling and comfy, thick carpets are divine. All of the leather quilting and stitching fit the price point; even the electric foot rest is cushioned leather. However, our tester does have an $1,080 piano black trim finish that we’d replace with one of the many other wood options. It’s a nice contrasting tone to the white leather, but we’d rather run our hands along open pore wood than this heavily lacquered black wood veneer.

Sitting up front isn’t so bad either, so long as you’re in the driver’s seat (BMW deletes the seat massaging function for the passenger with the Executive Package). It’s positively decadent up here, and it cranks up the luxury beyond your typical BMW interior. The center stack is the best example of this, offering touch controls and a full brushed aluminum surround for the climate controls.

For more iDrive and BMW infotainment talk, check out our deep dive review here. Everything applies to the infotainment setup in this M760i, positives and negatives alike.

We do have one suggestion for BMW to make the front seat experience even better: Introduce the Glass Controls option for the 7 Series. BMW will put a glorious glass shifter (among other glass controls) in a number of models, but you can’t get it in the M760i with the V12(!) engine. Speaking of which, BMW applies the V12 logo right next to the shifter, on the door sills and on that rear screen. There aren’t many V12s left in this world, so please, continue to douse us with the V12 logos and love, BMW.

All sounds pretty hot, right? It sure does. Even the $3,400 Bowers & Wilkins sound system is sublime. Crawl into the back and switch it to “Lounge” mode — it optimizes the sound for the rear seats. It’s all exactly what one might expect from a $181,975 flagship sedan. Driving the 601-horsepower freight train isn’t that bad either, but we’ll get into that another time.

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