First Drive: BMW 6 Series 640d M Sport 2dr Auto

What’s this, then?

The new BMW 6-Series, favoured coupe of monied golf enthusiasts across the UK.

‘New'?

Fine, ‘facelifted'. New bumpers front and rear, a pair of standard LED headlights and a tweaked grille pretty much round out the exterior revisions. Inside, it's business as usual, bar the addition of a tactile leathery dash' and some shiny Piano Black trim.

How about under the bonnet?

We tried the 640d - the one everyone in the UK will actually buy. The very excellent 3.0-litre straight-six diesel makes 309bhp and 465lb ft of torque, but thanks to efficiency tweaks is supposedly good for over 50mpg. And an official 134g/km of CO2.

Normal drivers will see closer to 40 in day-to-day driving, we suspect, which still isn't half bad for such a thing.

0-62mph is dispatched in 5.3 seconds, and, given sufficient autobahn, the big 6 will swoosh to an electronically limited 155mph. Quick, frugal, quiet, refined. Good.

And to drive?

Not bad. The 6er is not small - which is something made eminently clear the first time you point it at a conventional British B-road, or attempt to guide it through a city-centre width restrictor - but you can hustle it along without too much trouble.

The familiar (and satellite-assisted) eight-speed auto shuffles cogs smoothly and decisively, making good use of the many torques on hand. Sport mode does a decent job of stiffening things up, too, but it can't disguise the 6's true calling - high-speed cruising.

The 6 is at its best on fast, sweeping roads or motorways, where the tidy body-control and hushed engine pays dividends.

As a mile-muncher, it's mighty effective.

Should I buy one?

Probably not. The four-door 6-Series Gran Coupe gets our vote - which at £62,295 is exactly the same price as the Coupe.

It's better looking, more practical and somehow more desirable. Weird, that...