2009 BMW 7-series - it's Dooney Bourke "Sport"

Your Pap has been waiting seven years for this redesign and couldn’t be more disappointed with the results. The styling disaster began in 2002 when our much beloved car maker from Munich brought out the next generation 7-Series and thereby steered the entire company into a dark design alley. After the 2002 745i/Li landed, the world, and your Pap was left wondering if the designers had been puffing too much of the good ol' wacky tabacky.

Throughout its seven year product cycle, the 7-Series was botoxed, lifted and pulled but never managed to look much better than Tori Spelling on her best day. Some were intrigued by the oodles of technology but it was wonder-cum-horror. At the end of the drive, the S-Class still reigned.

Now enter the 2009 7-Series. Your Pap has been desensitized to the uglies BMW has been putting out lately (with the exception of the 3-series coupe), so with all kindness, hideous has softened to bland and boring (think Lexus LS460 sedan). And again, the Bavarians are flashing more technology. One of the latest features is the vibrating of the steering wheel if you try to make a lane change and there’s a car in your way. Well thank Mary, Jesus and Joseph because your Pap doesn’t much like looking at the road while he drives with a highball cocktail in hand. Just kidding, puppies – your Pap drinks mostly wine.

Would the fans like to know some styling problems your Pap sees in the 2009 7-Series? Well he’s going to tell you anyways. Derivative styling – remove the propeller badge and it could be any Japanese sedan over $30k. The BMW trademark twin kidney grill now looks like a flared snout, or maybe a late 90s BMW 528i grill on steroids. To your Pap, the front end with it’s bad proportions and bugged out eyes is the face of bad plastic surgery.

As for the interior, “Everyone please disperse…nothing to see here.” Looks like any of the recent BMW sedan interiors penned on a Viking scale. Your Pap is not fond of the “minimal” styling direction BMW interiors have taken with many controls relegated to a single iDrive knob. But apparently there are enough of you out there who like it for there to be a generation two of this ghastly device. I guess BMW drivers like playing with their little knob.

The biggest thing inside might be the on-board Internet. But you’ll undoubtedly have to pull over for this thing to work and your Pap has no patience to mess with this sort of thing in an automobile when he can be handing the 3G iPhone to the assistant to type in the desired web address. As for rear seat convenience…well actually your Pap would much rather be driven in any executive sedan built in Stuttgart (S-Class) or Crewe (Continental Flying Spur), so never mind.

Yet not all is a loss for BMW. They have an incredible knack for turning ugly into lease special. And there's a chiropractor in Glendale that's chomping at the bit for this one. But your Pap is warning you – don't u dare roll up to Nobu in Malibu with this thing!

Follow up: they could use these as police cars.