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BMW E38 7 Series Has the Soul of an E9 New Six

Back in 1995 BMW, released the E38 7 Series. It was ahead of its time, as usual, but most intriguing was that they claimed the new 7er inherited the DNA of the New Six models.
BMW E38 7 Series 1 photo
Photo: BMW
The German company even released a commercial showing an old E9 being crushed by a tree during a storm and its spirit transferred to the new E38 7 Series. This was controversial since the predecessor of the E38 was the E32 model, not the E9.

The E38 models were extremely hi-tech and featured many innovations that are still rare on some contemporary cars. Those features included high-pressure headlight washers, auto-leveling xenon HID headlamps, power moonroof, a sound system with 14 speakers and four subwoofers as well as 6-disc CD changer, onboard satellite navigation, rain sensors and many others.

It was such a good car that when its replacement with the new E65 7 Series model was announced, orders for the E38 increased noticeably because of the high popularity it had reached.

During development of the E38, which started in 1988, BMW engineers did thorough research on what customers thought was the best BMW to date. According to their data, the E9 won this ad-hoc contest so they had to create a car that felt the same way the New Six CS did.

That's how the E38 was made and that's the reason behind the commercial that we're watching today. It was a hard task to do, considering the size differences between the two cars. However, the impressive popularity of the 7er is proof that the German engineers did a great job.

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