The BMW M850i Gran Coupe Doesn’t Know What it Wants to Be

The BMW 7 Series is neither the most fun nor exciting car. It is a comfortable, spacious luxury car built primarily to relax and coddle you. It may be quick in a straight line, but its mission is clear: the 7 Series makes no sacrifices in its pursuit of quiet refinement. The BMW M850i is ungodly quick and plenty agile for its size, but lacks that clarity of purpose.

That’s not to say it’s a bad car. Objectively, the M850i Gran Coupe I tested had everything you would expect from a $122,775 luxury grand tourer. The red-and-black interior looked fantastic and the fit and finish was impeccable. It was also loaded with BMW’s best tech, from wireless CarPlay and gesture control to the phenomenal Traffic Jam Assistant that takes all of the hassle out of stop-and-go highway traffic.

Mack Hogan

And while other brands like Land Rover and Audi move toward digitized center stacks, it’s nice to see that BMW is still using intelligently positioned physical controls. The downside is that, even at its best, BMW can’t match Audi, Mercedes, Volvo, or even Genesis’ most stunning interior designs.

Plus, if you really want the best the Bavarians can do, the 7 Series is your only option. It offers nicer seats, more intricate detailing, ceramic controls, and lavish use of brushed aluminum trim. When it comes to rear seats, too, the 7 Series’ opulent reclining chairs and entertainment options leave the 8 for dead.

Mack Hogan

That’s to be expected; this is, after all, the sporty alternative. The driving experience is why you opt for the 8 over the 7 and, presumably, the M850i over the base 840i. On the powertrain front, BMW delivers. Whoever’s giving marching orders back in Munich has somehow forced the 4.4-liter V-8 and ubiquitous ZF 8-speed automatic into perfect lockstep, creating a drivetrain that feels ready for anything. In comfort mode, power is fed in gracefully to enable no-drama passes. Put it in sport plus and 523 hp bite at the leash, snarling and popping until you let the car run.

Mack Hogan

The engine and transmission combo—though also available in the 5 Series, 7 Series, X5 and X7—feels perfectly suited for what this car should be. To justify its six-figure price tag, the M850i needs to be a comfortable daily driver that’ll also tear up a backroad and leave you grinning like a fool. But while the powertrain is well-suited to that tricky mission, the car surrounding it falls flat.

As a daily driver, it’s too stiff. It won’t beat you up or toss you around on the highway, but the M850i jolts over bumps and crashes into low speed potholes. I’d expect a bit of a sacrifice going from the plush 7 Series to the 5-Series-based M850i, but the difference is drastic. The overly firm seats don’t help mitigate it, either.

Mack Hogan

If those rough edges allowed for an amazing driving experience, it’d be much easier to fall for this car. But the M850i feels like every big V-8 BMW: fast, composed, capable, and uninterested. With seemingly infinite power and a ton of grip, it’ll rocket down a straight road and take corners at absurd speeds, but it does so without ever feeling exciting.

You just push and push, its grip, power, and computerized everything erasing or ignoring any dumb inputs while providing precious little feedback. Our tester rode on Pirelli Sottozero snow tires which likely didn’t help feedback, but even M850i coupes on summer tires don’t feel engaging. Which, at $108,900, isn’t enough. Anything at this price is fast. A 750i is fast. An M550i is fast. Hell, a V-8 X7 is fast. With competition from Audi, Mercedes, and even within BMW, the M850i needs to be special to stand out.

Its placement in the BMW lineup, though, makes that difficult. The M850i can’t be incredible to drive because it has to leave room for the M8, but it can’t be soft because the 840i and 7 Series exist. It’s forced into this dual personality position that BMW feels increasingly incapable of nailing. While the company built an empire on fun-yet-livable sports sedans, more of its cars miss both marks.

Mack Hogan

The best modern BMWs, to me, are the ones that commit to one identity. The M2 Competition is brilliant because it’s not trying to be a luxury car on the side; it’s an enthusiast car that happens to have leather seats and a premium stereo. The X7 and 7 Series, meanwhile, are brilliant because they’ve finally recognized that huge luxury cars don’t have to be Nürburgring lap record holders and can focus on comfort.

So if you’re dropping big money on a BMW, get one that knows what it’s about. Whether you want the comfort of the 750i or the excitement of an M2 Competition is up to you, but don’t fool yourself into thinking you can have both with an M850i.

Mack Hogan

Reviews Editor

Arguably the most fickle member of the Road & Track staff, Reviews Editor Mack Hogan is likely the only person to ever cross shop an ND Miata with an Isuzu Vehicross. He founded the automotive reviews section of CNBC during his sophomore year of college and has been writing about cars ever since.