5/10: 1988–1994 BMW 750iL. The last outpost of rational extravagance. Beyond, there be dragons.
If the Mazda’s absurdity is absence, the E32 750iL’s is escalation with a slide rule. It was so thoroughly overengineered that it felt less like a product launch than a provocation. BMW fitted the first postwar German production V12 and wore it as both badge of honor and standing dare: bet you cannot burn through Deutsche Marks faster than we can. Panic radiated outward. Stuttgart noticed. Coventry noticed. Crewe, already operating at a temperature somewhere between mahogany and gout, noticed too. The 750iL’s wiring diagrams made grown technicians reconsider their life choices, and the message to the rest of the luxury field was not subtle. BMW had decided that rational extravagance was still rational, provided the cylinders arrived in pairs of six.
BMW’s V12 was, in a callback to its history as an aero engine manufacturer, full of redundancies. It was essentially two straight-sixes joined at the crank, with dual ECUs, dual fuel pumps, and dual distributors. Highline European models added such executive essentials as a fax machine, a rear fridge, a second alternator to run it all, and electrically deployed writing tables. Those last items were for when the service receipts required immediate signature.
The 750iL sits at 5/10 because the engineering was extravagant, but not yet deranged. It still had a coherent purpose: make the best German flagship sedan, then make everyone else explain why they had not. Mercedes, of course, escalated. The BMW V12 rattled Stuttgart hard enough that Mercedes developed its own answer for the W140, and the German luxury car became an arms race conducted by men who had apparently never met a cost accountant they could not outrun. Spectacularly expensive theater followed. More on that below.