Dirty Dozen: BMW Announces Final V12 Engine

Matthew Guy
by Matthew Guy

Pour one out for the twelve-cylinder BMW, folks. The car company has just announced its final run of M760i xDrive vehicles, fitted with what BMW is calling the very last V12 engine ever to be fitted to a BMW series production road vehicle. The party comes to a halt in June.

An even dozen of these machines will be made available for the American market. They’ll be distinguished by typical niche touches like unique badging and wheels, plus buyers will be given the run of the place in terms of colors and permitted to choose from the vast collection of exterior colors and upholstery offered by BMW Individual.

It’s been 35 years since BMW first offered a road-going V12, a naturally-aspirated 5.0L making just shy of 300 horsepower. Now, the configuration belts out twice that amount from 6.6L, aided by two turbochargers and tricks like variable valve control. Despite being lashed to an extremely large sedan, it can scoot to 60 mph from rest in about 3.5 seconds.

As one would expect, the Final V12 comes in one spec: Fully loaded. Plaques shouting “The Final V12” and “1 of 12” will pepper the car like confetti at a Macy’s parade, including inside on the center console and also under the hood affixed to its namesake engine. Other goodies include the luxury rear seating package which cleaves the area in two while pouring on the extravagance, plus the BMW ‘sky lounge’ LED headliner which does a good job of mimicking a similar feature found in its British-branded corporate cousin.

None of this should be a surprise, of course, not with plug-in hybrid powertrains heaving out equivalent (or more) levels of grunt while paying service to Johnny Polar Bear. There’s also a solid argument to be made that electrified powertrains, whether it’s a hybrid or full EV, are more than capable of besting these huge traditionally-powered engines off the line since they have access to world-destroying amounts of right now power from electric motors. If it’s pure accelerative thrills you’re after, it is tough to beat the rush of a 1,000 hp EV. There’s no replacing the soul of a V12 exhaust note, however, with some powerful all-electrics simply sounding like one of those Movators at the airport.

Want one? You’ll have to wait for your invitation. BMW says they’ll be clients with a long history of owning 7-Series machines with a V12 under the hood. Since they’re only making a dozen, that shouldn’t be too difficult a task. Production starts in June with deliveries planned for this summer.

[Image: BMW]

Matthew Guy
Matthew Guy

Matthew buys, sells, fixes, & races cars. As a human index of auto & auction knowledge, he is fond of making money and offering loud opinions.

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  • Jeff S Jeff S on Jan 20, 2022

    Rolls could always go back to a straight 6 which they once had which means they could use the BMW straight 6. Lighten the weight of the Rolls and possibly turbo it. https://www.rolls-royceandbentley.co.uk/most-iconic-bentleys-and-rolls-royces.html

  • Stuki Stuki on Jan 20, 2022

    V12s, like all larger engines, should be normally aspirated. There's no need for more 2000rpm torque than a 6.0 V12 delivers even without turbos. And a major part of the charm of V12s, is the way they sing up top. Which gets muffled and bagged up in all turboed engines. At least in my world, even an I6 has no use for turbos in a road car (diesels excluded). The legendary long stroke NA Bimmers being effectively unimproveable already. With, literally, two of them joined together, turbos really are gilding the lily to the point where it is (somewhat literally even...) truly choked of its charm.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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