Like Felix the Cat’s magic bag of tricks, today’s Nice Price or No Dice 750Li offers pretty much everything you could want. Let’s see if its price makes for some serious want as well.
The thought of cruising the fall foliage in a classic convertible is one that is blissfully warm and inviting. Doing so in a hot classic like yesterday’s 2001 Saab 9-3 Viggen might be a little less so as it could potentially turn those autumn hues into a frenetic orange-gold blur owing to its raucous speed and engaging play-with-me attitude. At an $18,900 asking, that was a risk that apparently not enough of you were willing to take, seeing as the Viggen went down in a 68 percent No Dice loss.
During the Cold War in the latter part of the last century, the U.S. and its allies undertook an arms race with the Soviets, each side building new and innovative ways to potentially kill or injure mass numbers of the opposing force’s populace.
Over the same time, a similar battle was waged between Mercedes-Benz and rival BMW, with each marque’s top model – the S Class and 7 Series, respectively — being the primary weapons of choice. The goal was not the destruction of the opposing brand’s customer base but its assimilation, and technology was used as the enticement to switch allegiances.
Mercedes and BMW have long leapfrogged each other in this techno battle with each updated model introduction. What that’s led to are vastly expensive cars that offer a window into technologies that will eventually trickle down to more plebeian models several years hence and, more importantly for our purposes today, some of the steepest depreciation curves in the industry among the older editions.
This 2014 BMW 750Li xDrive still represents a technological tour de force. As such, when new, it came in at a staggering $94,000 MSRP even before any of the various enhancement packages were counted. The big Bimmer saloon also maintains the highest depreciation of any car model out there, losing almost 57 percent of that drive-off-the-lot value in just five years. In fairness, it should be noted that the Mercedes S Class is almost as bad, dropping just over 50 percent in the same amount of time.
That means that we don’t actually have to wait for BMW to migrate the 7 Series technologies to less expensive models, we just have to look at a slightly older car like this to enjoy them.
There’s a lot — and I mean A LOT — to enjoy here too. This 750Li offers the longer wheelbase, so there’s plenty of room to party inside, and it’s decked out with a slew of optional upgrades, including the executive package, the cold weather package, and the M Sport package. That adds stuff like sport seats, a heated steering wheel, rear compartment window shades… well, the list goes on and on. Hell, there are even tiny TVs hanging on the backs of the front seats.
Mechanically, the car also has a lot going on as well. Under the hood lies a twin-turbo N63 V8 with 4.4 liters and making 445 horsepower and 553 lb-ft of torque. That’s mated to a ZF-sourced automatic with not six but eight forward gearsets. Ensuring that all the ponies get to the pavement, this car comes with BMW’s steady-eddie xDrive AWD system. Black-painted Style 184 alloys finish the job.
Aesthetically, there doesn’t seem to be anything glaring about the car. It’s less than ten years old and has only done a mere 98,500 miles, with neither age nor mileage appearing to have been hard-won.
The ad claims the car “RUNS IN PERFECT CONDITION” and says there are “NO MECHANICAL ISSUES.” It comes with a clean title and current registration tags. The seller claims that money issues are forcing the sale and offers the car at an $18,500 asking price. Yes, that’s probably about an 80 percent discount over what this car went for when new. Plus, nine years later, it doesn’t seem to be too far off that new.
What’s your take on this big BMW and that $18,500 asking? Does that seem like a fair deal to live in the near past’s automotive future? Or is this just a car with a lot that could go wrong and, hence, should be even cheaper on account of that?
You decide!
Delaware Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.
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