BMW‘s new Concept car unveiled today at China’s Beijing Motor Show Visions the future for the brand’s next generation 7-Series Luxury sedan. Word play aside, this was confirmed by BMW officials who put an end to previous speculation that the study may hint at a bigger and more opulent 9-Series sedan.

While the futuristic exterior evokes last year’s Pininfarina-designed Gran Lusso V12 Coupe with a sleek looking rear end and a drowsier front with truly massive double kidney grilles (as one of our commentators put it, “there won’t be enough space for headlights if the front grille continues to grow like that”), the interior is completely new featuring ample doses of wood, leather and carbon fiber.

The rear compartment is accessed through rear hinged suicide-style doors and offers first-class space for two, with both passengers getting detachable tablets, a retractable table and deeply contoured single seats. Up front, the driver is greeted by a wrap-around cluster of three interlinked displays and an elevated lower center console that houses a new iDrive controller.

There are plenty of new generation tech features such as a new head up display that projects information directly in the driver’s line of sight onto the road, Laserlight headlamps that are said to have “concentrated, parallel light beam up to ten times more intense than that of an LED system”, and new organic LED (OLED) tail lamps,

“We use visionary concept vehicles like the BMW Vision Future Luxury to show where we may be going with these themes in the future, and to give us new inspiration and motivation,” said BMW design boss  Karim Habib. “The BMW Vision Future Luxury – with its innovative technologies and with meticulous precision and quality in every detail – takes our thinking on modern luxury a logical stage further.”

By John Halas

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