Despite all the new segments and styles which have spread the shape of the car from its initial skeletel frame on wheels to today’s most luxurious concepts, there are some types which are classic and timeless.

Possibly foremost amongst them is the coupe, especially the large luxury coupe which is in essence the true Grand Tour car.

And in BMW’s past, the coupe has always figured strongly.

Some are not so well known, such as the beautiful 503 of the 50s that represented more than anything else the extraordinary resurgence of a nation which had been crippled by a war. Or the 3200 CS of the early 60s which clearly delineates the shift of the brand into modern times. The 3.0 CSi of 1979 is better remembered, and remains today a very buyable classic car.

But when BMW got Karmann to produce the first 6 Series in 1976, they might not have realised that they were setting up a new legend, if mostly in America. A legend they allowed to die 13 years later after some 86,000 had been sold.

Actually, it was more of a long hibernation. And the 6 has now been woken from its long sleep, re-energised and ready for the next stage of its life.

The new BMW 6 Series coupe will be in Ireland next March, targeted to a particular niche in the luxury car market.

The 645Ci 2+2 coupe provides full seating comfort for four and is powered by the 4.4-litre V8 that outputs 333bhp and has a maximum torque of 450 Nm. It is capable of accelerating the car to 100 km/h in 5.8 secs while returning almost 26mpg.

The car offers a choice of manual or automatic 6-speed gearboxes. It also gives the buyer options that include the Active Steering System becoming familiar to new 5 series buyers, as well as adaptive headlights and the upcoming Head-Up Display.

There’s no mistaking its lineage. The front end is its own individual representation of the current BMW ‘face’, with heavy-lidded ‘eyes’ and various sculpted lines to carry the eye down the long hood towards the muscular short-decked rear.

That rear too has become familiar, a version of the ‘bustle’ that has been a sometimes controversial element of BMW’s style for today. And the company has been solid in its defence of this ‘Beemer Behind’, retorting that the current 7 Series has already more than outsold its predecessor, so the customers like it even if some motorjournos don’t.

In the new 6’s version, it a curvier and cleaner in execution, but somehow to these eyes still looks like an afterthought.

This is in every way a big car. Lots of exterior shape in steel, aluminium and high-tech plastic moulding, leather cosseted space inside, and no pretence is made to make it seem anything less than it is.

Setting the driver’s position reinforces the ethos. Although the fit of the seats is that kind of snugness which a really good adaptable format allows, the cushioning is sumptuously ample, and matters such as head restraint height are geared without compromise for the tall people of this world.

If even I lowered the seat to its lowest possible height, I’d be too low.

Seat travel is also on the very generous side for the front occupants. Accommodation in the rear might get a little cramped on a long run, but I suspect the buyer of this one is not concerned with travelling in foursomes.

(The other half’s X3 or X5 is parked in the double garage for just that need.)

There’s a neat trick to getting in. When you blip-unlock the doors, a second blip lowers both front windows by about three quarters of their travel, lessening the possibility of impacting the chest on the trailing top corner glass. And when the doors close, the windows go up again.

It’s the small touches that count at this level of motoring, isn’t it?

The styling of the inside is much more conservative than that of the 5 Series. Simplicity and clarity of the main dials comes without question. There is a definite return to the ‘cockpit’ feel, with the business of the engine and the performance being the business of the driver alone.

There is the now-obligatory multipurpose information screen set in the centre top of the dash, controlled in exactly the same way as the 5 Series by an iDrive knob, and using the much more user-friendly interface than was in the first version in the 7 Series.

But this isn’t a showroom, it’s a drive, right?

Right. And while our driving time was limited enough because of the exigencies of getting to the airport on time for a flight home, it did provide a mixture of city traffic Spanish style and a couple of zoomy spins in the low mountain roads above Marbella.

That V8 petrol - the only one planned for this model as far as I can gather - is a tour de force in this application.

Pussycat smooth when required to tickle through the traffic. Instantly responsive when a dart of the right foot is needed to make an opportunistic lane change.

At which point I must remark on the steering. I’m presuming that the car on the run had the adaptive steering system option, because the response to the twist of the wrists was phenomenally fast and tight.

Afterwards, when opportunities arrived to overtake a slow van or two on a medium straight stretch, I already had the confidence to know the car would do the business.

Those moments also allowed me to hear the magnificent howl of a V8 on full song, not a common experience these days. It is something special.

It is also something that could have you neck deep in penalty points before it reaches 3,000 revs if you did things in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So perhaps the mere knowledge that this car can accomplish the sublime might be enough most of the time.

But I can see why somebody who has a Europewide business operation that necessitates visiting a dozen centres on mainland Europe over a week would put the new 6 high on the wish list.

Knowing the road systems there, and how it IS possible to cover long distances at consistent high speeds, with a fair degree of driving enjoyment even when you leave the motorway (or ESPECIALLY when you do at the right places), there is a place in motordom for this car.

Here in Ireland, where a definite anti-car bias is being developed from several angles, spending what is likely to be around €120,000 on a motoring pleasure machine is to be commended as a brave act.

And it seems that there might be 65 such bravehearts out there for the year 2004 alone, if the expressions of interest already received by BMW Group Ireland are realised into sales.

As, of course, they will be.

Will they get value for money?

Sure they will, because they have an expectation for their spend, and it is a fundamental part of the BMW credo that those who buy their products first and foremost are provided with fulfillment of their expectations.

There is a thing in the premium car segment that sets BMW apart from its peers.

This is that the product is fundamentally a tool for people who drive the company’s cars to practice and improve their driving skills.

I think the image element of BMW is quite different to that of some of its competitors.

There’s no flash. There IS engineering excellence, which comment in no way downgrades the engineering of said competitors. It is, I believe, the thing that the BMW chooser-user has at the top of the list of reasons for buying the car.

I’m not a BMW aficionado, or whatever the German equivalent of that Italian-based word is. I am not, and am unlikely ever to be, one of those people who are for their company hierarchal reasons in the position of having to choose a car in this elite bracket.

(Unless my next novel comes in ...)

But the ‘product offensive’ of the marque in the last couple of years, and programmed for the next few, has very much impressed me, and I no longer dismiss the brand as merely a producer of toys for the rich.

The new 6 will indeed be a car for the rich, because that is just what it is designed and produced for.

But it is for those rich with real discernment.

And brave hearts.