By Jim Meachen and Ted Biederman

We wrote in the spring of 2002 that the all-new iDrive system in the 2002 BMW 7-Series was a “Sherlock Holmes mystery” decipherable by only the most computer-savvy people.

And we opined that the typical over-50 customer was probably too technology-challenged and would be forced into hours of reading the manual to access the many available features on the new car.