I make the recommendation based on my recent trip to drive the car at the North American launch event, thrown by BMW to show the car in the best light possible. While driving from San Jose del Cabo to La Paz, I realized: it was a risky choice to pick this particular resort area and its surrounding environs.
The new 6-Series styling looks lighter and more sophisticated, while losing the boatlike tail of the previous generation. (Photo: Motor Authority)
Perhaps because I'm a typical first-worlder, desensitized to opulence and blind to the stark, brutal lives of the truly poor. Or perhaps because there are 407 twin-turbocharged horses and 443 pound-feet of torque under my right foot, eagerly stripping away all such deep and troubling thoughts at every corner. If it's a sin to lose oneself or one's human concern in such simple joys, I'm damned.
The 2012 650i delivers these joys in abundance, and with a refinement that's just subtle enough to live with. Each upshift is met with a muted five-beat thrump from the exhaust, each downshift with a clean rev-matched bark. Slip out of sport manual mode and let the eight-speed auto do the work, and you'll find yourself enjoying scenery you might have missed on a more intense drive while still devouring tarmac with Langolier-like pace and implacability.
That, in a nutshell, is the beauty of the new 6-Series: it's a born-and-bred grand tourer. Like any good GT car, it can hustle with near-sports-car-like aplomb, though it prefers to settle into a brisk but fluid lope. The convertible's interior enhances the serenity of high-speed touring, masking enough wind and road noise even at triple-digit speeds to permit civilized conversation, while raising the top brings it in line with a coupe or sedan. That's a notable feat in itself considering the 6er's soft top.
The convertible version of the 6-Series weighs just 300 pounds more than the coupe, retaining a fabric top for lightness and packaging. (Photo: Motor Authority)
BMW's previous 6-Series was often lambasted, somewhat beyond justification, for its boat-like tail and occasionally bloated angles. The new one fixes almost all of that, tying what is ultimately a slightly longer, wider car into a much more sleek and taut package. Visually, it's clearly a 6-Series, yet it's also very different.
Our only quibble with its looks lies in the seeming acres of metal that make up the hood, and the sometimes-odd-looking creases that form a V near its nose. My eyes kept catching the shape at odd angles and never quite got used to it. Others found no such complaints, however, so it's likely in the eye of this beholder.
The BMW's interior is luxuriously appointed, befitting a high-end European touring car. (Photo: Motor Authority)
With four modes available (comfort, normal, sport, and sport plus) the suspension offers a much broader range than many similar systems. Comfort mode is so floaty it's almost comparable to American luxo-barges of the 1960s, complete with the gentle after-bump oscillations most closely associated with such brands as Cadillac and Buick.
Defaulting to normal mode, the system provides a much more German interpretation of how a car should feel, with firmer damping and crisper responses, though without the edge you find in sportier cars. Click up to sport and the edge is back. Take it to sport plus, which also disengages traction control, and you're ready to carve canyons until your passengers tire of resisting the car's prodigious grip.