BMW officially launches 6 Series Gran Coupé
Another four door coupe is born
By Imthishan Giado
BMW’s first entry into the increasingly-crowded ‘four door coupe’ segment has officially gone on sale in the region.
The 6 Series Gran Coupé joins the second-generation Mercedes CLS, Audi A5 and A7 Sportbacks, Passat CC, Aston Rapide and Porsche Panamera as the latest ‘four door coupe’, which is code for a car with all the footprint and power of a regular sedan and all the impracticality of a coupe, or the worst of both worlds. Until now, only the CLS has really managed to pull off this look properly, but in person the Gran Coupé is quite a handsome beast avoiding the anonymous sausage styling of the 5-series on which it’s based.
The interior is where BMW really puts some distance between the Gran Coupé and its humbler sedan, borrowing extensively from the 6 Series Coupe leather and finish catalogue. Glossy white wood is stunning in person and the rich brown Nappa leather which cuts a swathe through the dashboard is no slouch either. Up front, it’s a comfortable place to be, but headroom suffers in the back, and anyone close to six feet in height will be an unhappy bunny.
Officially, this is classed as a ‘4+1’ with four seats being the regular version. In reality everyone will order the 5 seat option, which kinda takes away from the coupe-ness of it all. Still, all the passengers will be satisfied as the Gran Coupé sports the full complement of BMW toys, including Dynamic Damper Control, the ConnectedDrive suite which includes lane departure warning systems, heads up displays and Park Assistant.
The first model to be available is the 640i which sports the familiar 3.0-litre turbo six-cylinder engine producing 320bhp, good enough to do the 0-100kph jaunt in just 5.4 seconds. Prices start at Dh360,000 while the 650i Gran Coupé arrives in September with a 4.4-litre twin-turbo V8 and a price that we expect won’t leave you with much change from Dh500,000.
