Test drive BMW M850i xDrive: a coupé that is hard to improve

It was terrible having to return the car to BMW Spain and go back to harsh reality. The 8 Series from BMW and especially this M850i xDrive represent the perfection of what the best coupé should be: big and sporty, elegant, very technological and with flawless dynamics. It surely has something bad…

BMW almost never surprises us. Or never. They are always at the highest level and that is something to be very grateful for. But with this car they have left us truly stunned, imagining, not without a certain fear, what the M8 still to come can deliver, although that is a topic for another test.

To assess the M850i xDrive, the best approach would be to start by listing everything we don’t like… the boot is even large for this type of car, there is always the price, but that is for the poor, as I was told many years ago when I wrote for the magazine Ferrari in Spain. So I can’t find a single drawback.

The BMW M850i xDrive is a grand tourer with 2+2 seats, large and elegant, capable of satisfying the most demanding driver. It has everything and does everything well.

The current 8 Series offers up to eight variants between coupé and convertible bodies, not to mention the four-door Gran Coupé still to arrive on the market. There are petrol engines with 340 and 530 hp and a 320 hp diesel. Of these we chose the M850i xDrive, which has more than enough power to win you over and brings together everything we demand from a great coupé.

A V8 engine that captivates

The M850i xDrive seems to us the perfect choice, the most ultra-sporty and balanced of BMW’s elite range. The engine is a sculptural 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 with two camshafts acting on the 32 intake and exhaust valves to generate the advertised 530 hp at 5,500 rpm, along with 750 Nm of torque at just 1,800 rpm. With figures like these it is easy to imagine the car’s capacity for motion which, despite weighing two tonnes, shows no low-performance zones, no moments of waiting or anything similar.

Its operation is almost like a switch: on/off. Press the accelerator and the power arrives at will, always in the dose you choose, progressively and even gently, or with enough violence to strain your neck and push passengers deep into the comfortable seats.

When we refer to that “violence”, it is worth remembering that we are talking about a car which, despite what the scales say, completes the 0 to 100 km/h sprint in just 3.7 seconds and reaches 250 km/h, its electronically limited top speed, in little more.

The engine is of extreme refinement, in smoothness, low noise and thrust capacity, and if we are highlighting everything we like, we can also include consumption. Because by taking care with the accelerator it is possible to get it down to ten litres per hundred kilometres, although it is not easy. The simplest is to hover around twelve litres per 100 km, and enjoying what it offers, it is hard to get below 15 litres over the same distance. In any case, it is a more than reasonable consumption if we remember that we are dealing with a brutal 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 that hauls more than two tonnes with the agility of a light GTi.

The imposing engine is skilfully paired with an automatic gearbox with sequential control and paddle shifters on the steering wheel of eight speeds, which is also an absolute delight. It is a ZF gearbox that performs its function outstandingly: very smooth in operation, so much so that the shifts are barely noticeable, yet energetic and sporty when maximum attention is requested.

Playing with the paddles allows you to drive in a truly Formula 1-style sporty manner, with minimal response time and impeccable results. Others may be faster, but not much better. With a similar engine and gearbox it may seem that everything has been said and done, but it is precisely from this point that the BMW really begins to show what it truly is.

All-wheel drive for maximum efficiency

The variable all-wheel drive and a flawless chassis, almost futuristic in its technology, so effective it seems intelligent, so intuitive it gives the impression of anticipating what the driver wants or thinks, is what truly makes the difference.

On the console, next to the gearshift knob, the driver has a series of buttons that transform the BMW’s driving dynamics. You can choose between EcoPro, Comfort, Sport and Sport Plus, the different driving modes. It is a complete electronic control system that affects everything, from the damping to the engine electronics. The transformation is spectacular.

The suspension system, with independent wheels front and rear, uses variable-stiffness active dampers that respond to the settings of the different modes and also to the driver’s style and even to the type of road being driven. Depending on the selected mode, the engine and gearbox electronics, throttle sensitivity, traction control, torque distribution between both axles, digital instrumentation and even the steering angle of the rear wheels all change. The rear wheels are steering wheels and largely responsible for making the car so agile.

In conventional mode traction is to the rear wheels, although the front axle always receives at least five percent of the torque. Depending on the wheel slip detected by the electronic control system, it sends as much torque as necessary to the front axle, also relying on an effective active rear limited-slip differential, which distributes torque between both wheels.

Exceptional performance: the 3.7 seconds it takes to go from 0 to 100 and the ease with which it reaches 250 km/h say it all.

With such firepower, flying low on the best motorway is no great feat. It could be said that its ideal habitat is the motorway, and there the BMW M850i xDrive can maintain speeds beyond the limits of logic with complete ease, but the most surprising thing is that it not only doesn’t shrink on the tightest stretches, it actually performs like a fish in water despite its size and weight.

Besides the rear-wheel steering, which helps greatly, it is also worth noting that it fits active anti-roll bars that achieve a result similar to active suspension, largely avoiding body roll.

This electronic control system adds an outstanding sporting edge to the car’s dynamics, which only requires excellent tyres mounted on 20-inch alloy wheels and equally powerful brakes, with 395 mm front discs and four-piston calipers, for the behaviour of this BMW M850i xDrive to be judged, almost inevitably, as simply exceptional.

It also carries the M of BMW Motorsport in its name, pending the arrival of an overwhelming M8 someday. That says a lot about this car, although in this case the M is felt more through the technology applied, some decoration and carbon fibre almost at will. On our unit, besides the spoiler, lower lips and rear wing, the carbon fibre was present in abundance, even on the roof, which lowers the centre of gravity decisively, and this is also noticeable in a marked dynamic improvement.

The price, €140,400, is high, but it almost seems appropriate given the level of technology deployed and what it achieves and offers, beyond costly options such as the carbon fibre roof, the cut-crystal gearshift knob or the audio system signed by Harman & Kardon… Honestly, I would not remove a thing. It seems to me a work of art.

Image gallery BMW M850i

Photography: P. Morera and BMW