So last year I became a dad. Which meant that I needed a grown-up car. An MR2 simply will not baby. So after 8 1/2 years of driving this:
I had to saddle up and find something that would accommodate the baby seat and accompanying accoutrement. My criteria were pretty simple: RWD, manual preferred, doesn't make me feel like I've completely given up. Did not want AWD, nor turbo anything. Also, having designed cars, finding one I like the looks of is waaaaay harder than it should be. I found a few interesting cars, but made the mistake of driving a 5-series pretty early on in my search, and quickly came to the conclusion that, thanks to the depreciation hit that others who'd come before me had already taken, I'd narrow my search to 528s. Found a couple. One that I drove home, and quickly discovered was leaking from the fuel tank. Another that ticked the right boxes: black, black interior, good warranty... and the same price as this 550 that had the same miles, cleaner inside and out, more toys, and a whole lot more power. Done. So I went from one much-derided design to possibly the most-derided. Let the haters hate.This 2007 BMW 550i had 89,000 miles on it when I bought it in November. I'm the third owner, and I've put almost 4,000 miles on it since. After the MR2, it's like going from the F-18 to driving the goddamn aircraft carrier.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've all heard the same bullshit about the E60's exterior design. And you know what? They're wrong. Sure, on the wrong wheels and suspension (lookin at you, 528...) it's a little too light on its feet, like a hippo wearing ballet slippers. But the 550, with bigger wheels, meaner rubber, and sport suspension, it looks extremely purposeful, powerful, and grounded to the ground. Everyone shat on the E60 when it debuted, and, yeah, it was pretty shocking. I was still in design school when it dropped, and the only thing I could really say about it then was that it had the most beautiful bodyside section of any production car. And I still stand by that. The drape from the break of the concave shoulder to the fillet at the bottom of the doors is gorgeous. In 2003, it looked bloated, too tall compared to the E39, and I didn't understand the headlights. Now, with the benefit of experience and the intervening years, BMW's design team was prescient, weren't they? They were designing ahead of regulations and requirements that would similarly influence all production cars in the coming years. Today, it looks almost restrained compared to the convoluted, tortured sheetmetal coming out of companies like Nissan and Hyundai. I could go on at some length about what I like about the exterior. It looks best in darker metallics, I think, but the silver's grown on me. The 2008 LCI (BMW-speak for refresh) brought cooler taillights, nicer wheels, and some other stuff, but the basic shape stayed the same. I don't love-love it, but I respect the hell out of it. I'm not the only one.
The interior looks best at night, and unfortunately I haven't taken any pictures of that. The subtle ambient lighting is wonderful. The orange instrument lights are a richer, deeper orange than that in the MR2. With the sport package come the 20-way power/memory seats, which I have to say are the most comfortable seats of any type, automotive or not, that I have ever sat in. Seriously. They are insanely comfortable. And the bolsters inflate and hug you when you start the car. The only thing they're missing is ventilation, which would definitely be welcome in central Texas. I'm sure the new ones have that. The heat distribution is adjustable. The controls are all right where you want them to be, and feel solid and appropriately-weighted. The steering wheel is fat and grippy. You can program the steering wheel's buttons. The leather, although not as nice as the black or saddle colors, is primo, the stitching perfect. The back seat feels like a business jet. It's huge, and that middle seatback folds down for a big armrest/console/cupholder/card table combo. I've been in airplanes that weren't as nicely put together. After 8+ years in a mid-engined convertible, it's crazy quiet, hugely spacious, and feels like an armored car.
2007 was the last year for the dildo shifter, as 2008 brought in the now-BMW-ubiquitous lozenge shifter, as well as updates to the iDrive system. Having driven both, I much prefer the more conventional, earlier shifter when shifting in manual mode. It feels great, and is perfectly sized and positioned.
What knocks the interior is the dash and door trim; I think aluminum was an option, and that would have been much nicer than some shitty hydrographic faux-wood. That stuff sucks, especially on the grab handles on the door. Easily the biggest letdown of the interior. The cupholders are standard-issue pop-out-of-the-dash BMW fare, which means that they're likely to break. There's no pass-through to the trunk, which will really suck when the battery dies and you're locked out. There's also an inexplicable hinged compartment within the console compartment, and it's not like you could fit anything bigger than a couple of Bics (pens or lighters, but probably not both) beneath it. Which makes no sense. Cue the yo dawg.
But any shortcomings are, in my book, more than made up for by the insanely great seats, and the fact that you just feel fucking boss sitting behind the wheel.
The N62 engine is a 4.8l Jekyll-and-Hyde monster. Below 2000 RPM, it's like, Be cool. I got this. Between 2-3K, it kind of groans, like it's asking you if you're really sure you want to do this. At about 3500, it goes full-on Hulk Mode, and absolutely rips up to the redline. It's rated at 360 HP and 360 lb/ft, which seem like conveniently round numbers. Whatever it is, it's a lot. Which all comes at the expense of fuel economy. It doesn't sound like much inside the car, but the noise changes from a technical-sounding drone at low revs up to quite a roar when it hits 3500 or so.
Total: 76/100
Engine: 4.8l, 32v V-8 Power: 360 HP at 6,500 RPM/ 360 LB-FT at 3,400 RPM Transmission: Six Speed Manual or Six Speed Automatic (sadly the one that I got) 0-60 Time: 5.5 seconds Top Speed: 155 MPH, allegedly Drivetrain: Rear-Wheel Drive Curb Weight: roughly an aircraft carrier Seating: 5 people MPG: 15/23 EPA reported; I'm averaging 19.1 overall
MSRP: $17,000 as bought... About $70,000 when new.
