BMW 8-Series practicality and boot space

• Large dimensions mean big interior…
• But only if you’re in the front
• Boot is big, ideal for long road trips

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The 8 Series is a big car, and you’d think that something as long and wide as this would offer a large amount of interior space. That’s largely the case, as long as you’re sitting in the front of the car.

There you’ll find plenty of room to spread out in, despite the cocooning feel of a low roof and wide cabin. Because you sit low there’s plenty of leg and headroom for most.

That’s not quite the same story if you move to the back seats. The base is tilted more aggressively compared with a regular saloon car so there’s more legroom than if they were flat, but there still isn’t a lot of space, even for smaller passengers. Combine that with a very sloping roof and seat backs that are quite upright, and it’s not quite the grand tourer for four people that you’d expect it to be.

Thankfully, those seats fold flat to expand the boot for longer items, but even with them in place the boot is more than big enough for most at 420 litres – weekend bags will fit easily and it should be absolutely fine for a long road trip away. The bootlid is powered so you don’t have to do that yourself, it’s just the more restricted access that limits its outright practicality. But then you don’t buy an 8 Series as a practical family car.

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Is the 8 Series safe?

• Hasn’t been tested by Euro NCAP
• Should perform well in an accident
• Plenty of safety and driver assistance tech

The 8 Series hasn’t been tested by Euro NCAP, and is unlikely to be. That doesn’t mean it’s unsafe, as it comes loaded with a variety of advanced safety and driver assistance systems should the worst happen.

The 8 Series uses a Carbon Core structure which means it’s very solid and strong, while standard-fit items like collision warning, pedestrian warning, automatic city braking and parking assistant boost safety credentials.

Semi-autonomous driving technology includes the new Reverse Assistant, which continuously records the car’s last 50 metres of forwards travel at parking speeds. Stop, select reverse, touch the Assistant button and the car retraces its path exactly in reverse, doing its own steering while you operate the pedals. It’s designed to help people who live at the end of tight driveways, for example, or encounter a car coming the other way on a tight single-track road. A gimmick maybe, but it works surprisingly well.

Also available as part of a Driving Assistant Professional pack is adaptive cruise control with stop and go function, emergency stop assistant, lane-keep assist with active side collision protection and speed limit info. It’ll also keep you in your lane with automatic steering inputs.

When it comes to keeping a watchful eye on your 8 Series, the front, side and rear parking cameras can be used to record 20 seconds of footage on the BMW Drive Recorder, should you need to reference an incident.

The adaptive LED headlights have a claimed 300-metre lighting range, while the optional Laser lights can double this by lighting up to 600 metres ahead.