BMW can do big saloons with its eyes shut, but its eyes are never shut. Every corporate, engineering, technology and design sinew is strained to full tolerance each time it brings a new 7-series to market. The previous car, the fifth generation, whose lifespan virtually mirrored that of Cameron’s coalition government, was immense. ‘If this is a limo I want to retrain as a chauffeur, because it’s absolutely epic to drive, ’ I wrote, when saying goodbye to our long-term 09-plate F01 730d in the May 2010 issue of CAR. Six years later the same can be said again, word-for-word, of this 65-plate G11 generation. As far as the ultimate driving machine is concerned, there has been no mission creep.