BMW - Befriending My Wallet

I’m going to make a couple of wild assumptions here. First off, I divine that, by mere dint of reading a motoring supplement, you have some interest in cars and perhaps even enjoy driving them now and again. Secondly, I fancy. that the vast majority of you drive sensibly and within the law most of the time,even if you do boast a smattering of points that decorate your license. As I never tire of telling people - the more miles you put in, the more likely you are to be zapped by a mendacious and indubitably pointless camera. The bad news, in spite of the fine example set by Swindon, speed cameras are set to multiply like rabbits, with more average monitoring devices thrown in for good measure. You drive, ergo you are programmed to become a statistic - eventually.

If you’ve smugly or by sheer good fortune got away with it thus far, your shiny halo may soon be sullied, given that our great and glorious government has more plans for the motorist. The national speed limit on single carriageway roads is to be reduced from 60 to 50mph, we are told.

Cars are safer than they have ever been, and, apart from the Dutch, our roads are the safest in Europe. The disjointed thinking is that, because young people are still crashing too much, the rest of us must be punished. The last vestige of motoring pleasure - a lunatic, face-warping, death-defying 60 on a clear and open A or B road - is to be taken away from us.

I begin to wish that I drive a 1960 Ford Anglia, not a rip-snorting Morgan. When the wretched Barbara Castle introduced the 70 motorway limit in the swinging 60s, such speeds were, for many cars, aspirational. Crossply tyres, cart suspension and drum brakes meant that stopping at all was often a matter of luck, rather than judgment. We have moved on. Cars have moved on rather further. Speed limits should reflect this by being raised.  Instead, we are being dragged back into the dark ages by our law makers.

And so, facing the prospect of going nowhere slowly, allow me, seamlessly as ever, to introduce you to the handsome new BMW 7-Series or, more specifically, the 153mph 730d that I’ve been driving of late.

For a bit on top of the bargain £53,010 asking price, "mine" came equipped with self-dipping headlamps that, in spite of trying very hard, were impossible to catch out. Fantastic. The head-up display also informs - you - via the GPS - the speed limit on the stretch of road you find yourself. The latter feature may soon be useful or redundant (I can’t decide which), when the new speed restrictions strike.

A technological tour de  force with a six-pot diesel that is surely the best of the lot combine to waft20this luxobarge in torquey and exquisite silence.

The interior glows like a cosy red womb at night, like traveling first class on a trans Atlantic jet. Again and again I had to exclaim - this is a diesel, it does 38mpg, negating the need to ever opt for a big petrol V8 version.

Did I just say that?

This is the big car choice de nos jours.

Zog Ziegler