BMW’s V12 flagship didn’t just shock the establishment—it rewrote the rules

I. Speak Softly and Carry More Cylinders

BMW, a company known for well-made sports sedans, so thoroughly shocked the system with its new V12 and 750i/750iL (L for long wheelbase) that Mercedes delayed its new S-Class—taking an agonizing four years to respond. The undisputed elite, Rolls-Royce and Bentley, stuck to their tried-and-true formulas through 1998, arguably leading to their acquisition by BMW and Volkswagen Group, respectively, by the end of the 20th century. Jaguar was utterly outclassed. Aston Martin’s bizarre Lagonda was a non-entity, but the 750iL walked all over it as well. The Americans, well, they hadn’t been players since the 1950s—Cadillac had become a footnote in luxury automotive history and Lincoln was making livery cars. Make no mistake—the 1988 BMW 750iL changed everything that makes a luxury flagship, and its influence on what modern luxury means cannot be overstated, 38 years and counting later.

BMW debuted its 750iL on March 5, 1987 at the Geneva Motor Show. Overnight, it was no longer enough to build a bank vault on wheels and slather a cabin in book-matched walnut and Connolly hides. The world’s best luxury car now must not only be of unimpeachable build quality and use the finest materials, but it also had to represent the pinnacle of engineering and feature the most cutting-edge tech available.

Announcing the model, BMW CEO Eberhard von Kuenheim promised that this new flagship would “satisfy the highest standards which could be demanded of an automobile.” BMW built its last M760i “The Final V12” model thirty-five years later in June 2022, but its V12 legacy lives on—not only as the heart of every modern Rolls-Royce, but in its complete reconfiguration of the luxury landscape as the world knew it.

For the previous seven decades, the twelve-cylinder engine had been a decadent indulgence reserved exclusively for automotive royalty. The crème de la crème of prewar luxury—Rolls-Royce, Maybach, Pierce-Arrow, Packard, Horch, Cadillac, Lincoln—fielded grand limousines, elegant landaulets, and sporty cabriolets powered by a dozen cylinders each. They were built for heads of state, royalty, movie stars, and aristocrats—often by coachbuilders to precise custom designs.

Germany’s last prewar Zwölfzylinder was the Maybach Zeppelin DS8, abruptly ending production in 1939, as one might expect. In America, Lincoln was the final luxury marque of the prewar period to build a V12 sedan, finally and quietly bowing out in 1949. For decades afterward, the configuration—erstwhile synonymous with regal excess and effortless power—became the primary domain of Italian supercars.

Enzo Ferrari founded his firm in 1947 and built his legendary reputation on twelve cylinders. Ferruccio Lamborghini, a tractor magnate (ask Jeremy Clarkson—they’re still in production) famously enraged by Enzo Ferrari’s arrogance, introduced his own V12 in 1964. Their engines demonstrated the perfect level of excess—the pinnacle of performance, an exhaust note to die for, and that signature V12 smoothness.

Jaguar joined the club in 1971 to somewhat less fanfare. Its 5.3-liter SOHC V12, first installed in the XKE (E-Type) sports car in 1971, was an ignominious replacement for its storied inline-six and seen by most as a downgrade. The XKE, which in its first generation Enzo Ferrari himself called “the most beautiful car in the world,” fell precipitously in its world standing by the V12-powered Series III generation, in great part because of the weight of the large V12.

Jaguar made better use of the new engine in its XJ12—the only postwar sedan to carry the twelve-cylinder torch for the 15 years preceding the 750iL’s introduction. Mercedes-Benz, despite dominating the executive sedan segment, did not offer a twelve-cylinder production car until 1991, although its 1960 purchase of Maybach inherited that storied marque’s V12 lineage. Rolls-Royce and Bentley clung stubbornly to their solid and smooth but antiquated 6.75-liter pushrod V8, designed in 1959. Rolls did not offer a V12 from 1940-1998, and Bentley has never had one—although it offered a variant of the Volkswagen Group W12 from 2005-2024.

Planning for the 750iL’s V12 began in 1972. BMW’s prototypes pursued smoothness and technical intrigue. The 5.0-liter M70 featured cutting edge technology and airplane-mimicing redundancies: dual Bosch Motronic ECUs, twin throttle bodies, and full redundancy down to the last spark plug. BMW’s car show party trick drove its point home: with a coin standing on edge atop the intake manifold, the M70 idled in silence, daring the world to do better.

The 750iL’s arrival was a bombshell. The German press called it a national victory; Road & Track compared it to a Bentley. Orders flooded in from plutocrats and diplomats. Car and Driver, in 1988, wrote that “at any speed, [the 750iL] is more serene than anything we’ve driven short of a Rolls-Royce.” But even this was an understatement—at 70 mph, the BMW posted a 67 dBA cabin, quieter than a Rolls-Royce Silver Spur, (and the lowest ever recorded at the time), at half the price.

Throughout the 1980s, Mercedes-Benz’s 560SEL had dominated the luxury sedan segment. As Car and Driver wrote in 1987: “This psychic payoff is brought to you by the Mercedes‐Benz 560SEL, the undisputed big kahuna of European luxury sedans… no other big-name brand wields as much unadulterated, greenback-encrusted clout.” Yet even this mighty Mercedes relied on a V8.

In an era when American buyers chose clattering, smoky, anemic four-, five-, and six-cylinder diesel Mercedes sedans over gasoline models at a rate of four-to-one, BMW’s V12 could not be more different than the typical 1980s Mercedes. BMW recognized a clear opportunity: high-performance serenity.

The 750iL and M70 together wasn’t just an escalation; it was a provocation on two fronts. It put both the German and the English old guard on notice—overnight, they had to reevaluate what defined a luxury sedan. Mercedes was utterly unprepared and delayed the next-generation S-Class until 1991 to develop its own V12 600SEL. Jaguar made a series of questionable development decisions, culminating in a five-year period from 1992-1996 when it offered the XJ12 in three distinct generations (Series III, XJ40, X300).

BMW didn’t stop there: it doubled down in 1989 with the V12-powered 850i coupe, arriving two years before the Mercedes-Benz 600SEC. Maranello’s V12 grand tourer, the Ferrari 412, was blisteringly outclassed by the 8 Series. Overnight, the 750iL and 850i and their state-of-the-art V12s rendered obsolete yesterday’s über-benchmarks: Rolls-Royce’s Silver Spur and Spirit; Bentley’s Turbo R, Mulsanne, Eight, and Continental; Ferrari’s 412; and Jaguar’s XJS and XJ12, and Aston Martin’s Virage and oddball Lagonda.

The M70 gave way to the M73, which became the heart of the E38 750iL—a car so revered it chauffeured heads of state and starred as James Bond’s gadget-laden sedan in Tomorrow Never Dies. In the film, 007 famously controlled the 750iL remotely from the rear seat using a cell phone—uncannily presaging the 2017-2022 M760i’s Display Key, which could move the car in and out of parking spaces from outside.

From there emerged the Motorsport-tuned S70B56, powering the 850CSi grand tourer and laying the foundation for the legendary S70/2—the 627-horsepower V12 Gordon Murray selected for the McLaren F1. That engine triumphed outright at Le Mans in 1995, forever cementing BMW’s V12 reputation as not merely smooth, but savage.

Successors brought innovation: the N73 with direct injection; the N74 with twin turbos and 600+ horsepower in the M760Li. The engine in N73 and N74 forms anchored the reborn Rolls-Royce brand, powering its entire lineup from 2003 onward. And then, quietly, the N74B66TU bowed out in 2022 with a limited run of twelve M760i “The Final V12” editions. Each of these 601 hp super sedans was customized under the BMW Individual program, lavishly optioned, and delivered to loyal 7 Series owners in the United States, only.

BMW’s V12 endures now only in Rolls-Royce, once again demonstrating the engine’s continuing ability to punch far above its weight. While a V12 is now the only option for petrol lovers looking for a Spirit of Ecstasy on the hood, Rolls didn’t introduce a V12 until 1998—and only could then because BMW provided the engine from its E38 750iL. Bentley never produced a V12 at all; its first twelve-cylinder models in the early 2000s featured a W12, an altogether different animal—one shared with its corporate cousins, the upwardly mobile people’s car Volkswagen Phaeton and the understated-to-a-fault Audi A8.

With the 1987 750iL, BMW didn’t merely join the party—it changed the dress code, rewrote the guest list, and locked the doors behind it. In a silent coup, BMW won a game no one knew it was playing—or even wanted to play. It had built the best, measured not just in comfort, build quality, or prestige, but through engineering supremacy and cutting-edge technology. And everybody else had no time to catch up.