SPY PICS: BMW to update 7 Series

Despite the decline in Australian large-car sales, the high end of the upper large segment ($100,000-plus) is travelling pretty well right now. And it's due to the solid sales being put in by the likes of Mercedes-Benz with its segment-leading S-Class (up by 54.5 per cent over the same period last year), BMW's 7 Series, which is sitting steady in second place in year-to-date sales, and third placegetter, Porsche's Panamera, which is up 17.9 per cent over the same period last year.

This is not a bad backdrop for BMW's planned 7 Series upgrade, which is due later next year, about a year ahead of an all-new S-Class Benz. The current, sixth-generation big BMW has been around since 2015, so it won't have a proper answer for the S-Class for some time yet.

The revised BMW 7 Series, seen here in prototype form lapping Germany's Nurburgring circuit, won't be anything dramatic, but should help keep the company's flagship sedan bubbling along in the meantime.

Changes are expected to include revisions to both front and rear ends – a standard update strategy, and probably including an aggressive new grille – as well as internal improvements that should include the latest version of BMW's iDrive control system and, possibly, the company's recently-previewed configurable instrument cluster.

It's also expected that the 7 Series update will include the improved 4.4-litre V8 engine destined for the reborn 8 Series that produces better power than the 441kW/750Nm BMW M5. It should be joined by revised, carbon-footprint reducing, higher-power versions of the current range of 7 Series engines.

An actual launch date for the reworked BMW 7 Series remains a bit fuzzy, but it's certainly expected that it will arrive some time in 2019, as a 2020 model.