6.5/10: Mercedes W140 S-Class. Crossing the engineering Rubicon.
The W140 takes the same ambition and allows it to colonize the whole car. Additional side glazing addresses noise, closing assistance addresses the effort of shutting substantial doors, and the tall body addresses the passenger who would rather sit upright than participate in the designer’s pursuit of a lower roof. These are real benefits. Their cumulative effect is a luxury sedan in which an ordinary operation increasingly requires a subsystem.
The rear guide rods are the perfect miniature of the proposition. Make the car large and difficult to judge from the driver’s seat, then raise little markers from the rear corners to explain where it ends. There is nothing foolish about solving that problem. The absurdity lies in how often the solution becomes another mechanism that will eventually require attention. The expense is visible in the hardware: glass, latches, pumps, and actuators. It scores 6.5 because the refinement is persuasive and the supporting organization is enormous.
7.5/10: BMW M760i (2017–2022). When they start playing you off, but you have more to say so you start yelling.
The M760i adds a new contradiction: the machinery of effortless luxury given a conspicuous performance assignment. A V12 7 Series once justified itself chiefly by the manner in which it worked. The M760i also wanted the acceleration to be noticed. It belongs to the M Performance line, not to an imaginary full M7 program, but the lettering still changes the pitch. The quiet flagship has discovered the microphone.
BMW’s November 2016 U.S. announcement rated the 6.6-liter twin-turbo V12 at 601 horsepower and 590 lb-ft and quoted 3.6 seconds to 60 mph. Those are launch claims for that specification, not a composite assembled from different road tests. The engine’s family relationship to the first-generation Rolls-Royce Ghost does not make it identical to the later Ghost’s 6.75-liter unit. The impressive fact is simpler: BMW installed a twelve-cylinder engine and all-wheel drive in a large luxury sedan, then gave the result launch control.
The cabin could provide rear Executive Lounge seating, a removable control tablet, fragrance dispensing, and the illuminated Sky Lounge roof. The last of these lights patterned glass with LEDs; it is not Rolls-Royce’s fiber-optic headliner transplanted into a sunroof. The LED-lit glass still turns the roof into a piece of theater. A passenger could recline beneath manufactured atmosphere while the chassis deployed active steering to help the enormous assembly change direction. Comfort and performance are not incompatible, but the M760i makes their reconciliation look like a very well-funded committee meeting.
The B7 is the awkward witness. It demonstrates that an extremely fast, richly equipped 7 Series did not need 12 cylinders. That leaves the M760i defending the engine’s character and distinction rather than the bare availability of acceleration. It is a defensible position, but a more extravagant one than the early 750iL occupied. Buying the V12 because it is a V12 is perfectly intelligible. Pretending the alternatives could not get the job done is unnecessary.
That earns 7.5, with considerable affection. The M760i is not absurd because its performance is fake or its luxury useless. It is absurd because a remarkable amount of machinery goes into distinguishing an experience that was already exceptionally well served. Diminishing returns have seldom traveled so quickly.
8/10: Rolls-Royce Phantom III (1936–1939). What happens when you lock the accountants in the closet.
The Phantom III moves the complication into an earlier and more formal world. Its V12 carried twin ignition systems and 24 spark plugs; the car also provided onboard jacking and centralized chassis lubrication. Those devices had practical purposes, including maintaining a large, coachbuilt motorcar without treating every journey as a workshop expedition. They also multiplied the things whose correct operation mattered. Bodywork varied by commission, so one enormous limousine’s weight is not the weight of every Phantom III. The score comes from the complete arrangement: technical sophistication supporting bespoke formal transport, with upkeep that belongs to the same elevated standard as the upholstery. Goldfinger did not have to invent the mechanical extravagance. He merely added a different concern about the body material.
8/10: Cadillac Eldorado Brougham (1957–1960). Same closet, new accountants.
The first Eldorado Brougham made its separation from ordinary Cadillac production visible. A brushed stainless roof, center-opening doors, air suspension, and a cabin equipped with elaborate personal accessories turned a sedan into an exhibition of what Detroit could provide when ordinary pricing ceased to set the tone. The 1957 asking price was $13,074. That is sufficient evidence of ambition without inventing an audited loss on every car. The air suspension is especially instructive: maintaining ride height is useful, but the compressor, controls, and air system have to keep doing their jobs for the promised refinement to remain available. The vanity equipment is less ambiguous. Nobody accidentally buys magnetic drinking glasses for a purely practical automobile.
The later Brougham was a different execution, with Pininfarina bodywork rather than the earlier Detroit-built body. Its more restrained appearance did not convert low-volume international coachbuilding into an economical way of supplying an ordinary sedan. It earns the same eight points because it takes a plausible ambition, a uniquely distinguished Cadillac, and pursues it through a production arrangement that makes distinction expensive before the customer touches a switch. The first Brougham displayed the effort. The second sent some of it to Italy.
8/10: Cadillac Fleetwood Talisman (1974–1976). Leave those accountants alone.
The Talisman reaches the same score through upholstery rather than experimental suspension. In 1974, front and rear consoles divided a vast Fleetwood into four individual places. By 1975 the rear compartment had returned to a full-width seat, so the four-seat arrangement does not describe the entire run. Medici velour and the front console’s writing surface remain the essential evidence. This is a car large enough to carry a small committee, initially configured to ensure its members need not sit beside one another. It does not need a dubious price comparison with a Rolls-Royce to look excessive. The cabin has already upholstered the prosecution’s case.
