Reviewers agree that the BMW 745i accelerates beautifully, handles as nimbly as a much smaller car, stops faster than a Porsche Boxster, and gives a smooth and exceptionally quiet ride.  But many are put off by the car's central feature:  the iDrive.  The iDrive (contolled by the knob pictured in the lower right corner of the photo above) manages the 745i's major features, but it is so complicated that even BMW's own executives have had trouble learning how to use it. According to one review in Ward's AutoWorld, "Journalist Georg Kacher, writing in Britain's Car magazine, reports that one high-ranking BMW executive confessed to him (after five glasses of wine) that he had to drive the 745i 3,000 miles (4,800 km) before he fully understood iDrive."  No wonder the car comes with a special instruction card for owners to give to parking lot attendants.

Some software (e.g., Microsoft Word) has been criticized for "feature bloat" -- adding features that few people will use and, as a consequence, making the product more complex and making commonly used functions more difficult. Case in point in the 745i: tuning the radio.  Here's how Road & Track describes this operation, routine in most cars, but not the 745i:  "If you want to change to a radio station that's not one of your presets, here's what you must do: Tug the controller back, rotate it clockwise two clicks, depress it, rotate it clockwise two more clicks, depress it again and then, finally, rotate the knob to your desired station. Got it? That's six steps — assuming you know the right path — all while looking at the display instead of the road ahead."

A $70,000 car should make things easy for the driver, not distract him or her.  BMW expects that the kind of technology the 745i is introducing will become more and more common in the future and that drivers will adapt to it.  This attitude brings to mind an outdated philosophy of technology exemplified by the motto of the Chicago Century of Progress Exposition of 1933: "Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Adapts."  It's precisely the wrong approach to take to technological development.

Mark Savage, "BMW 745i too smart for tester," Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel (April 19, 2002).  "If this is the future of automotive technology, and many say it is, I'll pass."

"2002 BMW 745i," Road test on FamilyCar.com. Overall positive review.

Karl Brauer, "7th Heaven for Techies; luddites look elsewhere." Road test of the 2002 BMW 745i on Edmunds.com. Also see, D. John Booth, "First Drive: 2002 BMW 745i -- Rolling the Dice."

Tiffany Kary, "BMWs Hit the Road with Microsoft," CNet News (March 4, 2002).  The BMW navigation system uses WindowsCE.

Home page of BMW of North America.

BMW Galerie.  Pictures of the BMW 745i XXL -- a limo version of the 745i.  Text is in German, but all you need are the pictures.

Michael Frank, "Test Drives: 2002 BMW 745i," Forbes.com. "Despite the unkind adjectives slung at the new $68,495 BMW 745i, the car is selling like Molson at an NHL game."

Richard J. Newman, "2002 BMW 745i:  The Best Computer You'll Ever Drive," USNews.com.  See, also, Newman's article, "BMW's Bewildering Braniac" (June 24, 2002).

Paul Eisenstein, "2003 BMW 745i: Pushing a Highly Technical Envelope," on Bullz-eye.com.

Andrew Bornhop, "BMW 745i: iDrive? No you drive while I fiddle with the controller," Road & Track, June 2002.  My candidate for best title for a BMW 745i review.

Stephan Wilkinson, "uDrive Me Crazy," Popular Science.  "BMW's iDrive cockpit-of-the-future concept has taken some heat since the 745i debuted. We rode shotgun with an interface design expert to see what works, what doesn't."

Drew Winter, "Are Cars Getting Too Complicated?" Wards AutoWorld (March 1, 2002). "James Bond needs lots of gadgets in his car so he can save us from diabolical fiends who want to take over the world. How many features and gadgets do the rest of us need?"

Robert Farago, "The Truth About Cars" on PistonHeads.com.  The author says the BMW's iDrive system is not just over-complicated, it's downright dangerous. 

"BMW iDrive Controller," on Immersion.com, BMW's partner in development of the system. This excerpt from a March 2001 article in Automotive Engineering International magazine describes how the iDrive works in nontechnical language.  The complete article (available as a 7.9 MB PDF file) can be downloaded through a link on the site.

Don Buffamanti and Gregg Flores, The Auto Spies (a newsletter).  Scroll down to p. 3 for some interesting comments about the BMW 745i. (Note:  This is a PDF file.)

Curt's Newsletter (September 2002).  Extensive, mostly critical, comments on the BMW 745i which Curt Rich drove at Mercedes-Benz USA's "On Track" training program.  Note: Curt is a Mercedes dealer.

"2002 BMW 745i," one of the best products of the year on BestStuff.com.

Short summary of Alan Cooper's book, The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High-Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity (Cooper Books).  A book that seems relevant to the BMW 745i.

BMW 745i Central -- a site dedicated to the previous (1980s) version of the 745i, a car that has a devoted following.  See, also, 745i.com, a similar site.

And, finally, if you are in Los Angeles, you can rent a new BMW 745i for only $375 a day ($2,250/week), plus insurance, of course.  Includes 100 free miles.  On the other hand, for $375 a month you can lease a new BMW 325i. . . .