Grey BMW 745LE

It’s more than a little obnoxious, that new grille on the BMW 7-series. The last car we can think of to have such a big grille that it couldn’t fit on the front of the car and needed to cut back into the hood was the 1977 Oldsmobile Cutlass—and everybody recognizes that ’70s Oldsmobiles were paragons of taste. Let’s talk about this Grey BMW 745LE.

Then again, a larger grille naturally can ingest more air—think of the difference between sipping a soft drink through a straw and pouring beer down your gullet from an Oktoberfest stein. The official explanation for the updates to the V-8-powered 750i xDrive is a re-engineering from the crankcase up, but the grille at least hints at the increased power in the 2020 car. (With the exception of the base six-cylinder 740i version, all 7s are now all-wheel drive.) It’s not the 40 percent step up that the scale of that grille represents, but, at 523 horsepower and 553 lb-ft of torque, the new eight outpunches its predecessor by 80 horses and 74 lb-ft.

Taking this BMW 745LE Series one step further, the guys at Kean Suspensions in Belgium gave it the full treatment with a dropped suspension setup, aero parts and 22×10 / 22×11.5 Brixton Forged HS1 Duo Series wheels finished in 600 grit polished Olympic Bronze (Satin Clear)