INTERNATIONAL LAUNCH
6 Series GT: BMW hoping to strike it lucky second time around
BMW takes its next best shot at the five-door grand touring genre, writes Michael Taylor
Audi’s A7 has been an unmitigated international success story. It’s still lauded for its styling (even as its successor emerges), its dynamics are strong and it’s a great cruiser. Yet this same genre has befuddled BMW, leaving it swinging at ghosts and looking a bit silly everywhere bar China and South Korea, where people inexplicably liked the 5 Series Gran Turismo. For all the A7’s success, few remember the 5 Series GT came a year earlier, in 2009. Aside from initial ripples of derision at its styling, it also left the public consciousness first. Its facelift came in 2013 and it too left the public consciousness quickly. Yet the A7 continues to prosper, a tribute to the design confidence Audi showed, once upon a time. BMW’s GT nameplate has moved on, though, and now sits on a 6 Series instead of a 5 Series and it’s even longer than before. Always a massive car, the new G15 model has added 8cm of metal between its axles as it moves on to the 7 Series limousine’s wheelbase. The comp...
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