Wealth on wheels: The garage accessory that looks like precious finery inside

If you were to attach wheels and an engine to a bank vault, as a kind of physical manifestation of the fact that you need one to store all of your wealth, it would probably look a bit rubbish. But it would almost certainly feel like the new BMW 8 Series to drive.

The M850i xDrive Coupe, to give it its full title, doesn’t just feel solid, or even heavy, on the road. It carries the heft of something permanent, a stately home perhaps.

To sit inside it is to feel surrounded by precious finery – even the gear lever is covered in multifaceted cut glass, making it feel like a work of jewellery. These sparkling and unique “glass controls” also feature on the rotary wheel that runs all the car’s technology, the start button and even the volume knob for the sound system.

Sure, it all looks fabulous and expensive, but it’s the way they feel to touch that would make you happy every day should you choose to buy this $272,900 colossus on wheels (a convertible version is also available, but it’s slightly less beautiful and costs $281,900).

Being on board as a bank vault launches itself to 100km/h in just 3.7 seconds is a baffling experience. There’s a moment where you can feel the laws of physics threatening to punch each other and then that giant, great white shark nose seems to lift itself towards the sky as all of its 390kW and 750Nm attempts to pummel the ground at once.

Beneath all that bonnet is a 4.4-litre V8, twin-turbocharged engine that produces almost as much noise as it does thrust. Although, being a grand tourer – designed for driving long distances in effortless comfort – it can be quietened and made to behave if you keep it in comfort mode and are gentle with the throttle.

That is difficult to do, of course, when it’s so much fun to drive it enthusiastically.

Clearly designed for the devil-may-care delights of German autobahns, it can turn 100km/h into 200km/h in a way that condenses your lunch, but it is also enormous fun when you’re throwing it through a series of sweeping bends at 80km/h.

Where to park it

On the one hand, the six-car garage in this Dover Heights trophy home will come in handy for safely storing your precious BMW 8 Series, with all of its cabin jewellery under lock and key.

The only concern is that the views from the rest of the house are so endlessly enticing that you might never actually drive it. Still, it will make a nice objet d’art. 

Raine & Horne Double Bay agent Christophe Serrao leads the expressions of interest campaign, with a guide between $6.5 million and $7 million.