Spoiled for a night

I have become what I hate the most. I have experienced being chauffeured around the metropolis in a late model luxury car, driven in a convoy of four other identical luxury cars and two back-up vehicles while the common folk in their, ahem, common cars are being parted by the sirens of our motorcycle police escorts. Normally, I hate being passed by convoys like this when I was the common folk, but this night, I’m Mr. Big and I’m beginning to love the preferential treatment. Well, actually, I absolutely love it.

And I have BMW to blame for it. Please allow me to elaborate.

BMW Group Philippines invited ten journalists, including yours truly, to be in our best business attire and meet at half an hour past six Tuesday evening for cocktails at the Museum Café at the Ayala Museum on Makati Avenue. Over special martini concoctions like Martini Lychee and Martini Choco-Nut, BMW Philippines president Dr. Joerg Breuer welcomed us to the press preview and demo ride of what they claim as "the most comfortable luxury limousine in the world" — the new BMW 7-series.

BMW Philippines corporate communications director Lito German, who looked sharp in his pin-stripe suit, guided us through the features of the new 7-series in a short video presentation that I’m sure did not entirely register in our martini-soaked minds. Thankfully, he also supplied us with press kits to make sure we get the specs right even when the additional martinis made us "shaken but not stirred", as my favorite martini drinker, Bond, James Bond would say.

The new 7-series comes in two variants — the 750Li and the 730Li. The 750Li is the top-of-the-line model with a 4799cc V-8 gasoline engine equipped with the latest Valvetronic power and efficiency enhancements which produces 367 horsepower at 6300rpm. Compared to its predecessor, the 745Li which won the Ultra Luxury Car category of the 2004 Philippine Car of the Year, the 750Li makes 29 percent more torque and 10 percent more horsepower but consumes 9 percent less fuel. The new big Bimmer also emits lower exhaust particles, making the 750Li an ecologically-correct luxury car for the times, if ever there was one. Priced at a cool P10.3 million, you might really need police escorts to wade through Metro Manila’s traffic.

On the other hand, the 730Li, priced at a more affordable P7.3 Million, is powered by BMW’s silky smooth and powerful 3.0-liter inline six which makes 256 horsepower at 6600rpm and can catapult the luxury Bimmer from zero to 100kph in 7.8 seconds and hurl it to a top speed of 244kph, if you can find enough road in our traffic-snarled streets to test its performance. Perhaps, the police escorts might be needed to part the traffic, but there should be more than two motorcycle cops to clear the road way in advance.

But that’s not the point in getting a 7-series, as our hosts would later show us. BMW gave us five chauffeur-driven 730Li limousines, assigning two journalists per backseat and indulged us in a night of expensive pampering. After our tasty cocktails at the Museum Café, we were whisked off to our assigned limousines and driven to the new Hyatt Hotel and Casino to feast on sumptuous Chinese cuisine prepared meticulously by an authentic Chinese chef. On the way there, I couldn’t help but immerse myself in the luxury of the big Bimmer’s backseat, with its extended wheelbase opening additional legroom that allows the leather seats to recline. I likewise couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the respect and the attention afforded to us upon our arrival at the hotel. Hotel guests at the lobby may have wondered who those BMW-riding VIPs are. Ah, the diamond life!

After our Chinese gastronomic delight, we were again guided to the cars and driven off to the Edsa Shangri-La Hotel for our after-dinner cocktails at the hotel’s watering hole. We astonished a few more hotel guests, who stretched their necks to take a gander at the VIPs stepping off the BMWs. Our night ended around midnight, with the chauffeurs getting the best drive of the night after they dropped us off at our respective destinations.

I was Mr. Big, or even Mr. Bond, for one night and I loved it. I could get used to the pampering but it would take a lot of money, and I mean a lot, to continue this fantasy. Perhaps, if my man Bond, James Bond would ride in the latest 7-series, he would ask Q why they changed back to British cars and Q would respond as if he was talking to me, too. "Oh, grow up, 007!"