1992 BMW 7 Series 735i review from South Africa

"Seat twist" on driver's seat.

Lower control arm bushes had to be replaced when I bought it.

Speeding fines - oh, oops! that's not the car's fault.

Everything else - perfect!

What a lovely car!!

Good Points:

Stylish and classy, with plenty of power and not as heavy on juice as one might expect.

Great on the open road it chews the miles like no small car can.

Easy to park! Yes, believe it or not - although it's longer than a VW Kombi - it parks more easily than our Mazda 626, thanks to it's amazing power steering and small turning circle.

Electric windows, mirrors, air con - basically all the creature comforts you could wish for, including sunroof.

It flies!! The fastest I ever got out of it was around 235 km/h - and it still felt quite safe and stable, with good road-holding and responsive steering.

The problem with it being so stable and sure-footed, is that at 180km/h, you actually think you're still doing 120km/h, and then you get one of those pleasant little donation requests from the local traffic department - but that's what you get for playing the music so loud that you don't hear the speed alarm go off.

You can close all windows and the sunroof with the remote control!

Another great feature - Electric (full leather) seats with memory function - and this makes a HUGE difference for a 6'00" 180lb gorilla like me who's married to a tiny little 4'11" fairy who weighs like, a few ounces - you simply press the button, and the seat & mirrors magically move up, down, forward, backward - you get the picture.

My wife and I affectionately referred to "him" as Ollie - (and that's a long story ;-) but Ollie became like family. Sadly Ollie had a crash and, might I add, proved that the BMW 7-series was and still is one of the safest cars ever built. My wife had a bit of a stiff neck for two days, and that's it. Unfortunately, the car's a write-off, but we're definitely looking at another Beemer.

I thought I'd just mention: at the time, for the same price, we could have bought a tiny, brand new Tin Can Sport from Tin Can Motor Corp with manual windows, seats upholstered with brown paper and a funky logo, but... we're not daft - and thank goodness we didn't, because I really think my wife would've been very badly injured if she'd been in a little sardine can instead of the Beemer. Safety has no price.

Bad points.

Ah... lemme think... oh yes! There was something - the driver's seat would lift only on the one side (called "seat twist"). Three days before my wife had the accident, I downloaded a "how-to" manual off the net, and it looked pretty straight forward - but now I guess I'll never know.

The other thing is that the air con has a cabin air filter (quite advanced for the 90's), which needs to be replaced every now and then, or else you get the fan blowing like a rocket, but with only a trickle of air coming from the vents.