BMW M840d Coupe review: buy the V8 instead

You’ll have a car you won’t enjoy, in a country that won’t let you, and it’ll cost you a fortune.

BMW M840.

A wise man once said that if the car had been invented yesterday, no government would let ordinary members of the public drive one. That’s happening in Britain. We are facing a blanket 30km/h speed limit in towns, more cycle lanes, more cameras, more smart motorways and bigger penalties for any infringement, no matter how minuscule.

The joy of the open road has been sucked from our consciousness. We aren’t even allowed to see cars being driven quickly in advertisements, even if that’s the whole point of the car in question. In motor sport, we have Formula One, which has fewer thrills and spills than cricket, and drivers are penalised for overtaking. Or for not being overtaken.

And then there are the cars we drive that wrestle with you when you change lanes without indicating, bong when you don’t put a seatbelt on, and perform emergency stops if they decide you’re a rubbish driver. It’s almost like they don’t want to be cars at all. They’d rather be washing machines or pencil sharpeners or a biscuit-eating health-and-safety enthusiast.

You’d imagine BMW would be fighting this. It built a reputation on making the ultimate driving machine. So you’d expect the new 8-series, its flagship sports car, to be a giant two-fingered salute to the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.

When I first encountered the V8 version, in Georgia, for an item on The Grand Tour, I was a bit underwhelmed. Its wheels appeared to be a bit skinny and there was a whiff of Toyota about the rear end. It also didn’t appear to have a particularly exciting interior and, while it was extremely fast, there were many driver aids that caused even James May to froth gently at the mouth.

Of course, because James was championing it, I was duty-bound to find fault, but the truth is, I’ve always liked BMW’s big coupes. I actually owned a 3.0 CSL many years ago, and I’ve always hankered after the car that replaced it, the M635, and the car that came after that, the 850i.

Then there’s the now-defunct M6 Gran Coupe. In Australia once, on a farm the size of south-east England, I drove this car from our location, on private gravel roads, back to the farmer’s house about 50km away, and it remains the best drive I’ve had, in any car. The sun was setting, the savage heat was dying and, with the traction control turned off, I just drifted along in a beautiful series of gentle slides.

So while I may have been rude about the new 8-series to annoy James, the truth is, I was rather looking forward to having a go myself. I therefore borrowed one. And BMW sent the diesel. Few companies make a diesel-powered coupe in this part of the market, and I’m not surprised. Diesel power isn’t what you want in a car of this type, and especially not now, when the fuel itself is viewed in the same way as we view Harvey Weinstein and Rolf Harris.

Yes, the six-cylinder turbo engine produces 235kW, and that doesn’t sound too bad. But it’s the wrong sort of kilowatt, which comes in all the wrong places. You want a car like this to sing, not trudge.

In the other version, with the proper V8, you’d be encouraged to press on, in which case you’d notice the four-wheel-drive system that engages when you’re on the raggedy edge, and the active steering that goes light and tight in sharp bends. You may, if you are a road-tester on a car magazine, even notice the improved aerodynamics. But in the diesel, you just turn on the radio and sit there until you arrive at your destination.

There’s another problem too. If you avoid the options list altogether, it costs a shade over £75,000 ($136,000), which doesn’t sound too bad. But Auto Trader is full of diesel-powered 6-series Gran Coupes for less than $27,000, and there’s no reason to suspect that a similar fate won’t befall the 840d.

Which means you’ll have a car you won’t enjoy, in a country that won’t let you even if you could, and it’ll cost you a fortune. So how’s this for an idea. Buy the V8 instead, and move to Italy.

BMW M840d coupe

Engine: 3.0-litre turbo-diesel six-cylinder (235kW/680Nm).

Average fuel consumption 6.2 litres per 100km

Transmission: Eight-speed automatic, all-wheel drive

Price: £76,415 (from $272,900 for V8; diesel tba in Australia)

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars