2014 BMW 640i — a four-door sedan morphs into a coupe

On the road, the 640i is predictably German – that comforting feel of taut road-holding and the idea that the car is quick enough to get you out of trouble when you’re passing another car on a two-lane mountain road. The seats are still too hard for my admittedly lazy body, but they adjust a zillion ways and I wasn’t squirming around in discomfort after a 100-mile outing.

BMW has, of course, equipped this car with all the mod cons you’ve come to expect in something that costs $89,675 – navigation, heated steering wheel and seats, the ever-beeping parking distance controllers that sound out a warning when you’re about to bump into something, and the controversial iDrive system whose console-mounted knob controls much of the car’s electronics. (If memory serves, it was a “Car and Driver” magazine staffer who, when first confronted by the utterly confusing iDrive system years ago, wrote something like, “iDrive? I walk.”) Speaking of confusing, or perhaps not clear on the concept, BMW also gave the 640i a quasi-sunroof – it’s a big glass panel over the front seats that tilts up. But that’s it. The roof panel doesn’t go back, up and over the rear portion of the roof, giving the front-seat occupants that rush of fresh air that you get from other sunroofs. As a consolation, there’s a “power-sliding roofliner” that allows you to look up and see the tinted glass sunroof.

Most luxo cars being somewhat alike, the 640i does stand apart – its sedan-ness is mitigated by its coupe-ness, so to speak, and that turns out to be the difference in the pudding. I can tell you that out there on the street, this kind of low BMW did turn a few heads.