Now that I’m a BMW owner, I feel that it is time to unleash my deepest, darkest automotive hot take. If you’ve read my work for long enough, you know that I can find something that I love about every car on the planet. Truly, no car is truly a terrible car to me. Thus, I don’t really have hot takes. The possible exception to this is how much I adore BMWs built under Chris Bangle’s reign as head of design. I’ll say it, that was BMW’s best era of design.
On last week’s installment of Prove Me Wrong, our Matt Hardigree boldly proclaimed: “Steve McQueen looked cool but wasn’t actually cool and you shouldn’t pretend to be him. Instead, if you feel the need to cosplay as mid-century actor you should model your life after James Garner. James Garner was cooler than Steve McQueen ever was.” This resulted in a fun comment section full of stories and enthusiastic discussion. As it turns out, Hardigree didn’t have that hot of a take.
Now, I am somewhat afraid to see how you’ll feel about my own sincere take.
While I love all cars, my heart especially goes out to designs that try something different. Designers at the Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design Studio in California produced the second-generation Smart Fortwo, a car that specifically goes out of its way to highlight its safety structure as a contrasting design element. It’s bold, it’s a bit silly, and it gets tons of attention. And sadly, as Smart changes its future towards electric SUVs, that fun design appears to be getting lost.
The Freeman Thomas masterpiece that is the Audi TT is also a high watermark in my book. It’s conservative, yet timeless. Give it modern lighting and Audi could probably release it today. Of course, we aren’t here to talk about Smarts or Audis, but BMW.
Chris Bangle has his name on a number of cars throughout history and I think that Autocar nails it on the head when it calls his designs “Never Dull.” Indeed, whether praise or disdain, his designs and cars designed under his lead certainly seem to invoke some kind of response from enthusiasts.
Before his BMW days, the Ohio-born Chris Bangle worked on interior design for Opel, on a replacement for the Panda for Fiat, and even the gorgeous Fiat Coupé. Yep, don’t let the Pininfarina badge mislead you. Bangle’s work is on the exterior, while the famed design house worked in the interior.
Bangle is also credited for work on the design for what would become the wacky Alfa Romeo 145. This is to say that Bangle banged out some bangers even before BMW.
BMW’s Bangle Era
In October 1992, Chris Bangle became BMW’s first American head of design. When Bangle took the lead in BMW design, the company was known for conservative, but still catching designs. BMWs were desirable and stately and didn’t have to be shouty about it. While some of the vehicles designed under his lead continued this trend, there are a few that stand out as completely changing the script.
Autocar notes that the first BMW designed under his leadership was the Joji Nagashima-styled Z3.
The South Carolina-built roadster featured a restrained design. It maintained the classic roadster look with a long hood and short rear. Probably the most exciting element was the side vents.
But perhaps the Chris Bangle that enthusiasts know best appeared in 1999, when he penned the BMW Z9 Gran Turismo Concept. This car wasn’t anything like BMW had on the road at the time. It wasn’t laid back, it wasn’t conservative. Instead, it had evocative curves and in the back, a rear-end design that enthusiasts would later call the “Bangle Butt” when it reached production cars.
As Top Gear writes, this car shocked purists, while others thought it was exactly as the brand needed. I’m in that second camp. There was nothing wrong with what BMW was doing at the time, but Bangle was ready to switch things up.
Perhaps one of the most important designs released under Bangle’s lead was the BMW X5. It is the automaker’s first SUV, and BMW wanted not just to build an epic, luxurious SUV, but also have it fit into the automaker’s lineup. It was a tall order, since BMW was known for sporty driving machines, not an SUV that could do some off-roading. Project manager Eduard Walek joined forces with engineer Chris Chapman, Bangle, and designer Frank Stephenson in BMW Group’s Designworks in California. Together, the designers hammered out an SUV that I think has aged pretty gracefully, even two decades on.
But Bangle’s infamous is not because of the X5, but the vehicles designed under his leadership that would adapt elements from that Z9 Gran Turismo Concept.
One was the Adrian van Hooydonk-designed E65 7 Series. Launched in 2001, the fourth-generation of the brand’s 7 Series was a radical departure from its predecessor. Here’s what a 7 Series looked like in 2001.
And launched that same year, here’s what a 2002 7 Series looks like.
The front, with its droopy headlights, is a dramatic change all on its own. But for many, the truly controversial bit is what happened in the back.
Yep, that’s a similar rear end as the Z9 Gran Turismo Concept, and one that earned the nickname “Bangle Butt.” Recalling the vehicle’s design to the New York Times, Bangle said “in a few years all luxury cars will look like this.” The 7’s design was a bet that BMW would beat everyone else to designs that look like this. And while the vehicles of other brands didn’t adopt such a striking rear end design, the rest of the E65 still feels fresh to me.
Bangle’s influence would be seen throughout the BMW lineup for years. Highlighting them all would take thousands of words, so I will focus on just one more, the E63 6-Series. This is another vehicle designed by Adrian van Hooydonk and for the most part, looks like a production version of the Z9 Gran Turismo Concept.
This is a car that I feel looks a lot better in person than online. In photos, the BMW seems, I can’t put my finger on it…frumpy? I’m not sure how to describe it. But in person, I’m routinely blown away by these things. They’re low and long. Some parts are restrained, while others are bold.
And then there’s the Gina concept. This is one that I’m not so much a fan of, but my colleagues went wild about it after I mentioned it.
This concept featured a fabric skin stretched over a frame. It’s made up of four panels, so to speak. The sides open up like doors, the hood opens up like a zipper, and there’s a trunk, too. This is a car that’s more or less a shapeshifter, as the fabric changes to the environment and how the driver manipulates it. Again, it’s too much for me, but my colleagues loved it.
Back on track, BMW under Bangle’s design lead went on to recreate Mini and brought Rolls-Royce’s opulence into the modern day. The changes under his lead were dramatic, sure, but I think they led to some of the best years in the BMW portfolio from the adorable Mini to the still hotly-desired E90. Bangle left BMW in 2009, and longtime colleague Adrian van Hooydonk took his place. He’s still the head of design at BMW today, and I’d say some of the designs have changed for the worse, not for the better.
When I noted my hot take, our own lovely designer, Adrian Clarke, had something to say about it. I think my suggestion may have almost killed the poor man, but I’ll let him take the megaphone.
Adrian’s Take
I was recategorizing my mood image folders this morning when The Autopian Transatlantic Hot Take Messaging System (two tin cans connected by 4000 miles of string) [Editor’s Note: Um, that’s very expensive polyglycol-coated data string, thank you – JT] rattled on my desk. “Don’t you think…” said the voice of the obviously deranged or drunk Miss Mercedes “that Chris Bangle was BMW’s best designer?” I immediately did a spit take with my breakfast sherry. Don’t judge, it’s rough here in the UK at the moment. This sort of unhinged opinion cannot go unchallenged dear reader, and because I am a qualified car designer who loves the sound of his own voice I’m here to do exactly that.
Now, I know within certain parts of the BMW fandom Bangle has his fervent defenders (gives Thomas Hundal drag queen levels of side eye), but what Bangle essentially did was turn up, leave a big floater in the BMW design pool and then bugger off back to California to make wine.
Prior to his arrival at BMW in 1992, he had been the Design Director at the Fiat Central Studio in Turin. The car that made his name, the eye opening 1993 Fiat Coupe had not yet been released, but it was a progenitor of things to come. Combining avant-garde flourishes like slashed wheel arches and a gradient front vent with retro detailing, it had slightly uncomfortable proportions thanks to its humble Tipo underpinnings. Nevertheless when it was shown there was a collective gasp of “BMW hired the guy who did THAT?”.
Yes, steady stately old BMW. The company that in typical German fashion elevated engineers to god-like status and shoved the designers into a cupboard under the stairs. The design department held essentially no sway, and had been reduced to updating cars developed years prior by Paul Bracq and Giovanni Michelotti. BMWs had a sense of quiet authority and athleticism, but the existing 3, 5 and 7 series were variations on a theme. Same sausage, three different lengths, laughed at the German auto media.
Given this need to totally shake up not only how BMWs were designed but what design actually meant to the company, BMW were charmed by this snappily dressed Wisconsinite who was convinced car design, like the controversial theory of Punctuated Equilibrium needed to have big evolutionary leaps every couple of generations.
And boy did he make some big leaps. Inspired visually by the deconstructivist buildings of Frank Gehry, he took the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum and slapped a set of wheels on it. BMW called it ‘flame surfacing’. They had figured out how to stamp complex compound panels in one go and were determined to use this technology to get a little abstract.
What we ended up with then was a series of BMWs that had incredibly twisted sheet metal and odd details packed with technology for its own sake. Whether it’s the terrifying Terminator limo-of-the-future E65 7 series or the bleak Bavarian futurism of the E63 6 series, these were cold, awkward, spiky cars a world away from the considered driver focus and thoughtful sporting machines that had gone before. The E85 Z4 was a retro pastiche with modern surfacing and a gimmicky ‘Z’ feature line. Industrial Designer Marc Newsom described it as ‘being designed with a machete’. When the E90 3 series was released looking like a bad copy of a Mitsubishi Carisma described over the phone, it represented a clear winding back of Bangle’s ideas as BMW realized the true horror of what it had unleashed.
Now it is worth noting that Bangle was not responsible for original sketches of any of these cars; but as design chief he would have picked what went forwards and developed them from initial ideas. And young designers are not stupid. They soon work out that you’re designing for the chief as much as you are for the customers. And the man responsible for the E63 and E65 was BMW lifer Adrian van Hooydonk who went on to take the top job when Bangle retired to his vineyard in 2009.
As the student became the master and rose to the very top of the BMW design hierarchy (van Hooydonk is now Group Design Director responsible for not only BMW but MINI and Rolls Royce as well) he set about killing any remaining subtlety or nuance in BMW design. Constant revolution and willful in-your-face aggression has taken over from careful evolution, and that is Bangle’s overall legacy and lasting influence on car design.
That and the introduction of bloody iDrive in the 7 series.
So, Autopians, is Chris Bangle one of the best things to happen to BMW? Or is he the reason that some of the company’s vehicles appear to have kidney problems?
(Photo Credits to BMW unless otherwise noted.)
Despite punching a colleague, the best modern BMW designer was David Robb, the chief of motorcycle design from 1993 to 2012 and thus,the designer of the iconic R1200GS, the polarizing R1200C and the various F series bikes. His boldest moves were sticking the F650’s gas cap in the side of the seat to acknowledge that the gas tank was under the seat, and the BMW C1 scooter with a roof.
Whatever his achievements I will always tag Bangle with the E85 Z4’s “Bungle Line” the odd crease from the front wheel to mirror.
I never punched anyone at work, but my smart mouth did have my manager kicking me under the table a few times. He was far too laid back and diplomatic to care, but as a smartass gobshite with autism I didn’t know any better.
That Gina concept looks like a deranged Pikachu plotting world domination–and your messy demise in particular.
I blame Bangle for instigating the bloated-but-creased design language of the 2000s that caused me to completely loose interest in new cars for a decade or more. The considered opinions with examples from designers on this site has rekindled my interest in newer sheet metal, so, thanks for prompting me to actually look at cars again rather than automatically ignoring anything not 20 years old.
After I watch TED talks by Bangle or read his writings about ‘flamed surfaces’ and such, I look at his designs and have an understanding what he was trying to do and appreciate that someone was trying to push the envelope.
Half an hour later, I look at an e65 7 series and say, “God, that’s awful shock-value shit..I’d never buy that”.
If it doesn’t make you want to write a check or commit to four years worth of payments, it isn’t good design.
Well it looks like Autopian does not offer Vision Insurance.
Do I wish BMW stuck to the course and kept evolving their designs from their glory days? I’m not sure. If they had, I don’t think Mercedes would have written an article like this. I think those above Bangle deep down wanted the controversial designs. Is there a better way to get free press? Nearly 20 years on and we’re STILL arguing about these cars to a greater extent than the competitors of the era.
I feel like being somewhere in the middle on this take is the easy way out, but it’s difficult for me to look at the e63 and see an ugly car. The one thing BMW did well with Bangle era cars is tweak the designs during their mid-life refresh to improve them. The early e65’s hurt my eyes when they were released, but the facelifted ones are much more pleasing to look at. While the ’04 E90 is a more reliably built car than the rest, the later and higher spec’ed ones are nearly as good as the e63.
I’m a BMW nut and will be until the day I die. But the Bangle Era is where I start to lose interest. Not for their looks, but the way their reliability and tactile driving experience took a nose dive. There’s still gems in their line up, but there’s so much clutter one has to cut through in order to get a “good” one. Virtually every e30 ever built is a brilliant experience. Same goes for the e36, e39, e31, and most of the other pre-Bangle cars. If BMW could get that magic back, they a new golden age would be upon us.
“I’m a BMW nut and will be until the day I die.”
Have faith, there is life after BMW (this life, not that one). Look West (towards Stuttgart), and you’ll find equal technical excellence, and a purity of design – inasmuch as one defines “purity” as “resisting the urge to say “. Which of the Stuttgart houses you settle for is up to you.
The shape of the Bangle Butt (Hooydonk Badonkadonk?) is less of a problem to me than the fact that the rear lighting is completely at odds with it. Especially on the 7-series, it looks as if it’s wearing the trunk lid from a completely different car. The trunk and the rear fenders just don’t refer to each other in any way.
The droopy front headlights are an obvious, amateur-level mistake that any designer should be thoroughly embarrassed by, but they’re no worse than a thousand other instances where teams of highly-trained design talent working for the most prestigious companies in the world have nonetheless managed to turn out something that an 8-year-old would throw in the trash after scrawling it on the back of his Reading Comprehension worksheet during his lunch break. They suck to a fairly inexplicable degree, but they don’t stand out from the pack of crap designs the way that butt does.
Allowing Bangle to create the overall shapes while retaining Luthe detailing would have made a really fine evolution of BMW. It’s what I hoped 2nd or 3rd generation Bangle designs would become, but instead we got Crazy Adrian.
If not for Lexus making even larger design mistakes, BMW would be far worse off than they are now.
I approve of “Hooydonkadonk.”
They said that in the Bange era, the letters “BMW” really stood for “Bangle muß weg” (Bangle must go). There were not wrong. As you can see clearly in the photos, the 2001 7-series was an elegant, well-proportioned automobile, while the 2002 model is just a monstrosity. BMWs lost all their elegance in the Bangle era, and they haven’t regained any of it since.
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They couldn’t stay that elegant though, as I said further down, pedestrian impact legislation came in, meaning bonnets had to sit higher, meaning in turn drivers had to sit higher to see over them, and boots had to sit higher to balance the bonnet visually.
I’m a bit biased because I’ve owned my 2003 E85 since 2009, but I like the excitement and drama that Chris puts into his designs. The lines are artful the way they intersect but are not superfluous, and are very natural. I was not a fan at first, but when I saw the Z4 in person the design really grew on me. I still think it looks fantastic and I don’t feel that my car looks like a 20 year old car, especially with new headlights and some updated trip.
If I were to compare a 1983 BMW in to one in 2003, the design language is so distant but what he did modernized and created a timeless trend.
That being said I don’t really like modern cars all that much; I don’t like the wasteful tech or added weight and especially don’t like the overly aggressive and sharp edges most cars have.
The flame surfacing still stands as an enduring design concept that many other manufacturers have picked up (although possibly somewhat because it became possible, but have to think BMW influenced a lot of it), and still looks great on the cars released under Bangle’s oversight. Honestly, I think that one detail gets him off the hook for some of the less flattering details.
But when shoting for so much change at once, I guess it’s inevitable that some details won’t work. I could almost live with the 7 series butt if the taillights looked like they lined up at all. And the giant headlights/eyelashes on the 5 series kill me.
A point not yet made is BMW needed the design revolution as it was about to diversify its line up, into SUVs, small hatchbacks and sports cars. The one sausage, different length approach wasn’t going to work in these broader ranges and would have been very dull if they tried.
Bangle BMWs are all spec sensitive, normally needing large wheels, and there were hits and misses but in the right spec and lighting some of his designs are the best of their time and still look great 20 years on:
For me:
1 series coupe and convertible
5 series
6 series
Z4
Z8 (not sure if this fits the narrative being a retro design)
Are all masterpieces
1 series hatch
7series
X3
Unsuccessful but interesting
3series too diluted of Bangles style, whether deliberately so by him, or by BMW losing confidence, being the last of his mainstream models launched and being their biggest selling line.
Also, the RR Phantom launched during his time at BMW is imperious and has clear Bangle influence.
Mille Miglia
Gina
X Coupe
CS1
Concepts were all stunning too.
Yeah, it’s tricky to break down all the hits and misses in one article. I’m with you on the E60 5 series. On the right wheels it still looks pretty crisp. Also the 1 coupe, which undid the 3/5 tail dumpiness.
The Z8 was done by Henrik Fisker in a skunkworks in California, and Bangle left them to it. Gina also absolutely stunning.
Again, I’ve said this before but bold and interesting doesn’t have to mean divisive and bad. The X351 Jaguar had to be bold but remains a beautiful car. Just not what a lot of people expected.
Forgot to add originally, the bangle butt was a consequence of (European?) pedestrian impact legislation brought in in 2004/5. The bonnet needed to sit higher to provide a crumple zone above the engine for head impacts. To balance this visually, the rear boot deck also needed to sit higher. This is why bangle said all manufacturers would do the same, and they did.
Look:
Prior to the Bangle era BMW made pretense to designing “The Ultimate Driving Machine”. The beauty of their cars was in the mechanicals and their external form followed function – the styling was sleek but gave the impression of being designed to encase the car simply and without concession to styling gimmicks.
In 2002 that all changed. The Bangle design was purely design for the sake of design – shades of the 1959 Cadillac with the Caddy’s functionless fins being substituted by an ill-fitting undersized trunk lid.
BMW’s move away from driver experience was exemplified by the original I-Drive, introduced in the same car. The company’s cars began their move to flash and bling design being emphasized over actual engineering.
Nowadays, BMW is no longer about making driver’s cars it’s about a seat for every …leaser. There’s a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7; a whole bunch of X’s and a couple of i’s and a Z. Oh, and don’t forget the turn to the Chinese market with the “Look at ME!” Hog-noses. Sure they sell a lot of them, but they’re all kind of new-Coke BMW’s, and I, for one, blame Chris “I tell ya, we’ll sell a million of em – you can be as big as GM if ya get ya some bling” Bangle.
Everything here is hideous, except for that old 7 series and Z3. Yeah, the Fiat is puke too. The title could not be more wrong.
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That’s impressive: Nigerian Prince email level of incoherent word-salad there, Faye! Are you deliberately weeding out those above a 70-point IQ?
The Fiat was pretty sensational when it was released, mainly because we were still in the ‘aero-blob’ era coming out of the tail end of the eighties. But it’s aged quite badly I think. Is it interesting? Like most of Bangle’s stuff, certainly but you’d struggle to call them good looking.
In person and in its time, it was a really fresg and alluring design. It’s interesting that different teams did the exterior and interior, because one of the best design features was the bare metal body colored dash.
Agreed. I love the 3, 5, and 6 series as well as the z3, 4 and 8.
Current design team has no excuse for their hideousness. Just because you wanted to get in good with the boss while you worked for him doesn’t mean that you have to continue the path once he’s gone.
Current BMW needs to figure out cooling without having the car look like it’s going to snort Tony Montana levels of cocaine.
Maybe future evs will go back to more horizontal kidney grills vs vertical.
I should point out that over on the motorcycle side of the house, they’d added David Robb, who reworked the lineup pretty hard. The R11S, with its under seat pipes, telelever, paralever and swoopy, integrated bodywork was a big step up from previous design efforts.
He introduced design elements still in use today, 25 years later.
BMW was working over their whole design language and imho, they set the company up for where are now -a company willing to take big design risks to move them forward. They’re always a little out there. But they’re willing to experiment. I like that a lot.
Yeah I flop back and forth with BMW motorrad. Sometimes I look at a GS and think that is a terrific looking bike, then another day I think it looks spindly and gangly. I suspect, that a lot of their appeal lies outside of the visual – the dealer experience, the build quality, the character of the engines.
They can’t style a super sports to save their lives though. Their Teutonic fidgety-ness works much better on their tourers and adventure stuff.
“The front, with its droopy headlights, is a dramatic change all on its own.”
I’m not sure it is all that dramatic. The E38 in that photo already has a slight double-droop in the headlights, and the rest of the bumper design is fairly evolutionary.
The E65 has aged well, especially in LCI, and looks far more modern in 2022 that an Audi or Merc of the era.
I’d argue that the second-gen Audi S8 looks substantially more modern.
It’s certainly aged a lot better, but it’s important to remember Audi saw themselves as a company for people who thought BMWs were a bit flash and showy.
A lot of modern design is very busy, visually loud and not particularly cohesive.Bangle is directly responsible for that.
I would argue that now they look less shocking because of the passage of time and everything that has come after is so much worse. But influential doesn’t mean good.
Finally, somebody who can put what I feel into words.
Bangle most definitely was a huge influence on the needless busy (and impossible to repair folds) in nearly everything. And it hurts my soul so much. The best example of this shift might be the Jeep Grand Cherokee.
The WK’s designs were finalized before Bangle really took off. So if you look at a WK rear end, you have simplicity itself. A form that follows function with vertical tail light assemblies in the rear pillar, the tailgate between them, and a bumper with cutouts for required rear fog lights below. The headlights in front are large and expressive. The rest of the body work relies on easily repaired rub and chrome strips with very few complex folds or shapes. And of course, since it was a money printer, they ran that tooling into the ground – especially Cerberus.
Then comes the WK2. And holy shit, WK2’s are just so… everything wrong with everything. The headlights are tiny narrow things. The rear end is now offensively busy with half the tail light in the tail gate, two dozen cuts in the tailgate metal, another three dozen in the bumper, no less than 7 basically impossible to repair fold lines in the rest of the body, a ridiculously complex hood shape with three distinct step-up/step-down sections, just so ridiculously busy everywhere! And not at all in line with what a Jeep is, not even a Grand Cherokee.
Thanks, Bangle. (Siiiiiiiiiiigh.)
Interesting, I happen to feel wk2 Jeeps look timelessly clean and elegant, instantly recognizable as a Jeep…. One of the rare cars that looks right as a base model and also as an expensive top trim parked at the country club. Definitely a hot take.
You clearly need glasses.
The WK2 is neither clean nor elegant, and completely breaks from historical styling cues on every full size Jeep.
The Grand Cherokee was intended as the spiritual replacement for the Wagoneer. Know how many years had horizontal tail lights aping into the tailgate? ZERO. Horizontal tail lights period? ZERO. The styling cues for the tail lights was ALWAYS wrapping deeply into the rear quarter, or tall vertical. The WK opted to do both.
The needlessly busy hood with 3 steps? Also ridiculous. The historical styling is a full length ‘step up’ with a dipped/rolled lip, generally simple. The WK didn’t significantly depart from that, even with the headlight curves.
And the sides have always been SIMPLE. It’s luxury but also still an off-roader. SJ’s never had multiple complex cuts in the sides, nor did the Grand Cherokee prior to WK2. All those ‘cuts’ were created using chrome trim, rub strips, and stickers.
The sheet on ZJ, WJ, and WKs has one cut. That’s it. One. Adrian’ll back me up on that too. It has a single clean cut line that follows the fender bulges smoothly to the rear bumper. All the additional visual ‘cuts’ are made using stick-on parts.
WK2, there’s three weird ass, needlessly busy cuts. There’s one at the door bottoms that tucks in, opposing the fender bulges. The fender bulge line is no longer clean; the door strip is cut in further between the bulges. There’s a high cut just below the door handles that starts below the front fender bulge, then extends to the tail lights, crossing below the rear fender bulge. And it’s all fragile folds; basically unrepairable in a collision. You have no choice but to replace the entire sheet.
Mind you, I am NOT saying the WK2 looks bad. The final evolution of the WK2 looks quite good in my opinion, as long as it’s in colors. It’s a body that works well with purples, blues, and greens especially. Whites and blacks, yeah, no. It looks awful in white. Even the tri-coat pearl. (Cashmere Pearl really worked well though. Making it only 2 years was stupid.)
But you can also see VERY clearly in the WL that they realized the WK2 was ridiculously out of tune with the history. The WL is back to minimal cuts. It has a lower door cut which is fully inside of the fender bulge area, and a high cut line through the door handles. The hood has a single step-up almost identical to late Wagoneers. And the tail lights, while going into the tailgate for regulatory reasons, visually have more than half of their length in the rear quarter (a la 1970’s Wagoneers.)
My problem with the Bangle BMWs wasn’t and still isn’t Bangle’s lines but the fact that they were crammed on while retaining too damn many holdovers from the 1962 Neue Klasse (or even before in the case of the infamous “kidneys”).
One advantage of the old-school Detroit annual model change was that very few design cues were allowed to get precious enough to be immune to being swept away by it, and even then they only were until they weren’t (Pontiac’s “Silver Streaks” lasted more than 20 years, then Bunkie Knudsen’s first act as division chief was ordering them gone. He led the brand to its’ golden era).
The problem with the ‘new model’ year approach was that it became uneconomical, even though the underlying vehicles changed very little. It was also a very cynical approach, because it was about making customers buy a new car every year.
There’s nothing wrong with holding onto visual cues and identifiers – all the great brands do it, not just car companies. It is after all how you keep your identify in a crowded market, but the key is to update and evolve them subtly over time. Customers buy into this approach because the products they buy are a reflection of how they see themselves and how they want others to see them.
I’ll start by saying I agree on the busy futziness and Bangle may or may not have been the one to blame. I have heard it said that the Chinese really like all the visual noise and their market really matters now.
I don’t like the Bangle cars at all, but some of the problem is probably the overall bloat of the vehicles. Everything in this market is now “go big or go home”. To me what always defined luxury, even in large cars is a look of refinement. The older BMS, MBs, even Bentlys had a tailored look. Like a suit that fits. The Bangle era is part of the big baggy sloppy look. Think goofy American zoot suit, v.s. Saville Row.
Interesting fact. The trend of baggy pants hanging around the knees that proliferated with the hip hop community and spread from there, started with emulating prisoners who would overstate their pants size to have place to hide contraband and were not given belts. Now we have seen that crap in high fashion. Maybe it’s apt that rich people want to dress like prisoners. I definitely don’t want to spend big bucks on a luxury car that looks like a lumpy down market Asian car.
The Chinese market is interesting. I do agree there is too much pandering to what is considered to be attractive there, but I do think it’s due to having no real developed taste of their own. They’ve essentially had no creative or design experience of their own for a long time (for cultural reasons) and the fact they thought at the time it was easier to make money by being the worlds factory rather than a creative hub. Of course we know this is not true – the money is made at the creative ends of the product manufacturing process; at the beginning with the concept and design, and at the end with the advertising, marketing and selling. They are unlikely to develop any real design talent even though their students flood European and American design schools, but again this is for embedded cultural reasons.
It’s quite a naive market – very brand aware but lacking in any discernible understanding of what those brands actually mean. This will probably change over time, but worth remembering Land Rover do very well there, and they are some of the best designed, well considered and least flashy vehicles around.
For the first ~40 years of my life, I was a BMW-obsessed person who happened to do other things (besides being obsessed by BMW).(It’s pronounced beh-emm-veh.) If you cut me, I would bleed E- and M- codes, and other blue-and-white-patterned trivia. It all started with seeing an E21 in the flesh, after years of cutting up my dad’s magazines. (Ok, that should do it for the intro.)
The first time I heard Bangle’s name was the in the context of the clownshoe – I got a sleeve with “M-Coupe Music”, a bunch of photos and quotes by one C. Bangle. It was breathtaking – no idea if his pen was anywhere near the sketches that became that car, but this was typical BMW – a bit traditionalistic but definitely and single-handedly reviving the shooting brake.
Then came the lows – very shortly on the heels of possibly peak BMW design (E38, E39 and E46) – and those (the Z4, the E6* atrocities) very definitely had Bangle’s name all over. His most memorable (to me) quote is that a designer’s role is to take consumers where they don’t want to go. I do remember the concepts (including the Gina..) and thought that, while his comment was insightful, perhaps consumers shouldn’t be taken just about anywhere, direction matters.
So indeed, Bangle’s influence is massive, and to me, at the time, seemed to be the first designer with a “philosophy” – beyond the usual mix of shapes, tradition, inspiration, homage etc. The E6* atrocities have aged very well, and virtually every car put on the road in the last decade shows some of that influence (well, except for maybe Jeep and Porsche).
I don’t think it’s his fault that BMWs look today the way they do, but it’s definitely his legacy that the designers dare/take bold risks. Chances are that consumer may like where you’re forcingly taking them.
(Oh, and the iDrive – as a concept – was just brilliant.)
The Bangle Butts always made me think of Lincoln Continental trunks that were over inflated. Take your lead photo and put a thumb over the trunk. Does it look like another German car? You’ll figure it out in about .911 seconds.
Compared to the 2 generations of BMW’s that have came out since the end of the Bangle era, I personally think that they have aged well for the most part. The E60 5-Series is definitely my favorite generation of 5-series and Bangle design, especially since the F10 that replaced it is an incredibly anonymous car by comparison and I fear what the next 5er will look like given BMW’s recent track record.
The E60 is probably the most successful of his cars, ignoring the X5 as he probably didn’t influence it that much (he spent the first couple of years of his tenure learning the company and rebuilding the design department).
The F10 was a definite retreat from Bangle’s ideas and BMW recognizing it had gone too far.
The e60 and e90 are some of the best proportioned and best looking cars out there. I don’t understand anyone who thinks they look bad.
I think the headlights on both let the rest of the design down, but they really nailed it with the E92, and when they planted the E92’s face on the E90 M3 that really stood out as a good design to me. Likewise, the weird blinders on the top of the E63’s kidneys seem to work against the car, and I really think it’d be a winner with complete kidneys, which sadly it doesn’t look like anyone makes, even in the aftermarket. I love the distinctive design of the Z4 and would buy one if it wasn’t for the weird variable steering, which is an engineering flaw. All in all, he had some odd touches but his designs brought BMW out of the past, so I take the good with the bad.
Well, here goes the third take that absolutely nobody asked for. The best BMW designer was Claus Luthe. Okay, he may have killed his son, but let’s not get bogged down by who stabbed who. That being said, Chris Bangle oversaw some brilliant designs once he found his footing.
See, Chris Bangle couldn’t really do evolution at first. I fully agree with Adrian’s take on the E85 Z4 being an unfortunate-looking car as Bangle’s team simply didn’t soften enough lines to maintain cohesion. It’s not nearly as cohesive as Joji Nagashima’s Z3 that came before it, nor Juliane Blasi’s beguiling E89 Z4 that came later.
There is a 3-Series that looks like a Mitsubishi Carisma, but it’s not the E90. It’s the E46 sedan. I’m surprised by how few people acknowledge that the E46 sedan is quite hideous, falling into the same trap as the W140 Mercedes-Benz S-Class of trying to do the bare minimum to modernize a very era-specific shape by adding gobs of visual mass and ever so slightly rounding out some edges. It manages to be both archaic and fussy, a truly rare combination of ugliness.
Then there was the X3, conceptually a shrunken X5 but not handsome in the slightest. Its face looks like it’s been pushed in and there’s so much poorly-broken metal between the greenhouse and the sill that the whole crossover looks like it’s having an allergic reaction.
However, once Bangle figured out the BMW styling language of the 21st century, almost everything came out brilliantly. The E60 5-Series is a clean design by today’s standards and still looks incredibly fresh. The E63 6-Series is a bit impersonal, but it’s a massive GT car, it’s supposed to be imperious. The E90 3-Series has some fabulous details like the near-horizontal surfacing atop the front fenders and the crisp-yet-dainty mirrors on pre-LCI cars.
Will the current BMW design language recently ushered in under Adrian van Hooydonk eventually find its footing? There’s a chance it won’t, but I have a feeling it might. Regardless, with changes in manufacturing technologies and zeitgeist, revolution in design is inevitable. We saw it with Giorgetto Giugiaro’s folded paper designs of the 1970s, we saw it with Jack Telnack’s aerodynamic Ford Taurus of the 1980s, we saw it with Chris Bangle’s designs of the 2000s, and we’re seeing it again as automakers discover that EVs aren’t held up by all the typical ICE packaging constraints.
While Chris Bangle turned out his fair share of ugly cars, the handful of really good ones still get people talking and are still quite attractive today. As for the unfortunate state of BMW styling today, that’s neither his responsibility nor his legacy. As a very well-respected automotive designer once said to me, “You can break the rules, but you better have a really good reason.”
It’s true, most people don’t recognize that the e46 is hideous, because that’s not the case. I’d love for you to elaborate on this point, as it took me by surprise and goes 100% against my every instinct. The e46 was certainly an evolution of the e36, but it was tighter and cleaner in almost every way. Some of the bumper details on the early base versions were a bit busy, but what else was fussy? In the front, the hood now encompasses the kidneys, which eliminates a shut-line, and makes the hood crease flow up and over the hood in a completely uninterrupted and beautiful manner. The door shut lines were cleaned up a whole lot, especially at the rear. The hofmeister kink now flows right into a clean, crisp door seam, instead of being inset as it was on the e36. Quality of assembly and mechanical design are a bit of a different topic, but the e46 was a stratospheric leap from the e36 as well.
Where did the e46 add visual mass? If anything, the trunk area of the e46 is much more tapered, resulting in a visually shorter rear from the front 3/4.
The E46 is widely considered one of the high water marks of BMW design, even if not’s ground breaking it’s very well executed.
*adjusts glasses and gives you side eye*
*cracks knuckles*
While the E36 sedan was aged by the late ’90s, it still looked rather sharp. The E36 sedan was a home run of a design that largely leaned on simplicity and thoughtfulness. The full-length profile character line pierced by the wheel arches was simple yet thoughtful, as were the headlights seemingly designed with a ruler, and the simple sills contoured along the lower edge. A certain degree of thought was also given regarding shut lines. The hood-to-bumper shut line running above the kidney grilles and along the upper edge of the headlights is a great example. Not only does it clean up the front end, it runs roughly parallel to the slam panel, giving a lovely sense of cohesion.
In contrast, the E46 sedan was defined by visual mass and poorly-placed shut lines. Let’s start with visual mass. On the early E46 sedan, the front bumper bulged out around the lower grille, and this bulge kept going through the front fenders and doors. This could’ve been mitigated by tucking the lower edges of the sills and bumper back underneath the car, but they flare out yet again. This treatment visually raises the car, as do the driving lights set high in the front bumper, as do the top-heavy headlamps, as do the side rub strips that almost completely obscure a lovely character line, as do the tall rear lamps, as does the thick rub strip located extremely high on the rear bumper. The E46 sedan isn’t a particularly massive car, but it looks bloated.
Poor selection of shut lines certainly doesn’t help either. In contrast to the E36, the E46’s hood comes all the way down to meet the front bumper trim, necessitating two filler panels that meet the fenders. While this wasn’t so egregious on the E39 due to the filler panels being rather slim, the E46’s filler panels are large enough that it’s easy to notice how the outboard vertical shut lines don’t line up with anything on the front end. The side skirt shut lines below the doors aren’t great either, that little band of actual sill between the doors and the side skirts has always seemed rather careless. Once you see it, you will never be able to un-see it.
As for mild annoyances, the early E46 sedan features tacky and pointless black trim in the rear valence intended to break up the paint that only ends up adding visual mass due to having more paint beneath it.
While many of these issues could’ve been fixed in the facelift, most simply weren’t. The wider, narrower lower grille combined with the driving lights floating out on the painted surface of the front bumper actually raise the focal point of the front end, while the rub strips were free to run amok and the bulge in each side skirt remained unchanged.
Overall, the E46 sedan features a slightly bland design language with slapdash execution. The devil is in the details and the details of the E46 sedan are quite dreadful. The E46 is one of the few BMWs where I like the coupe more than the sedan because Erik Goplen’s two-door variants clean up some of the slapdash details.
The hood shut line is one you always want to hide as much as possible because it has to be much bigger than normal. This is to allow for an ‘overslam’ condition, i.e. how far the hood has to travel past it’s resting position to latch before returning to nominal. So the E46 makes a very good design trade off; hiding the larger hood shut line in return for two much tighter, shorter lens where the fill panel meets the fender. This is very clever.
As for that tiny shut line not lining up with anything, well you don’t always want to line everything up as it can have the opposite affect – drawing attention to something you want to keep hidden, and it can lead to very rigid, geometric looking designs. It’s highly likely that shutline couldn’t be moved further back towards the fender as that would mean the fender wouldn’t be able to hold it’s shape when stamped.
The rubbing strips are there so you don’t end up having to replace the bumper in a parking nudge. And they do reduce visual mass because the amount of body colored area is lessened. Compare to the M3 which does away with these and you can see this, which leads me to another reason for them – differentiation between trim levels.
It’s important when designing a car not to focus on details individually, rather than what they contribute to the car when viewed as a whole. This is the difference between the Earl and Mitchell schools of design and how the discipline progressed. Earl was unable to draw and worked orthographically. He concentrated on intricate details which is how we ended up with dagmars, jet fighter exhausts and tail fins, something for you to focus on as individual elements. Mitchell knew you had to step back and take in the whole thing, as you can’t pick out details as a car is in motion.
Completely agree with Adrian. While I see what Thomas is talking about regarding details of the design, when viewed as a whole the design is so clean yet interesting…. Especially the mid cycle facelift version. I think this is a classic example of missing the forest for the trees.
Luthe had his hand in the design of the E31 BMW 850/840 also. I was out taking apart the relay box in mine tonight trying to chase down why almost the entire electric system failed.
What’s up with the Z4 hate? The E85 designed with a machete? WTH?
The flame surfacing that is still being mocked today is the norm for every car designed in the last 15 years. The ‘gimmicky Z’ is a non issue, it took someone pointing it out to me to notice it. The clash of curves and crease is nicely balanced, adding drama without leaning too hard on either side. The ‘retro pastiche’ as Adrian puts it is actually retro design done right: referring to the past but not caricaturing it.
The E89 looks bloated, awkward and very “whatever” compared to the E85.
Just because it took someone to point out something you couldn’t see doesn’t mean it’s not a visual gimmick that only works on one side of the car.
It’s the sort of thing students do and think they’re being clever – they come up with an ill conceived motif that’s far too literal and then design the whole car around it.
Car design is about using shapes, forms and detailing to create emotions and feeling, hopefully pleasurable.
I always thought that line was wholly unnecessary. I like the rest of the design, and suspect it would look better without the “Z”.
I always thought the Bangle-era 7 looked kind of Baroque, but I know that I am in the minority. Compared to its predecessor, however, it looks like the visual equivalent of a band’s shitty album right after an awesome, huge-selling album.
And I thought that the E60 looked great after the facelift.
Lastly, I think iDrive comes from Satan’s anus.
The beauty of the diagonal line is how it traces the vector of the A-pillar. When you look at Anders Warming’s sketches, it’s obvious that’s what he was trying to do, rather than form a noticeable typographical Z. The shade formed under the diagonal suggests a widebody vent without being an actual fake vent (like the Autozone-grade pieces on the Z3 and 2nd-gen Z4). It also evokes shark gills, which is appropriate given the rest of the car. The only way it could have been even cooler is if it was a shut line for a big clamshell, like it was on Warming’s Zille Ziglia concept.
Overall I see a lot of the GINA concept in this Z4, and it’s the closest we’ve probably ever gotten to that kind of aesthetic without actually stretching fabric on wires. If I recall correctly, they modeled the hood of the Z4M by making a fabric and wire armature and scanning it to make the sheet metal form.
Amen, Adrian. Unfortunately, in my profession, architects never seem to stop that bad habit of devising ill-conceived motifs and designing whole buildings around the most literal interpretation.
I get that but it hardly feels like the car’s been designed around that element.
I was up in arms about the E46 comment, but I note you’re focusing on the sedan, and I think that’s less objectionable – they’re much, much better in coupe or convertible form, but the sedan certainly feels more generic.
Yeah, I should have qualified, but you are correct it does work better as a coupe and convertible. I’m afraid I don’t know and don’t care enough to look up the E numbers because I’m not that much of a BMW wiener.
I never notice the E46 sedan, but love the coupe and convertible. The E30!& E36 that preceded the E 46 have front ends that look like a child’s cardboard mock-up of a car. 1 or 3 flat sheets w/ grill openings cut in. The E46 nicely combines the veil & hood into one nicely (& undoubtedly, hideously expensive) curved/streamlined piece.
I own an E93, and think it looks OK, but every piece bolted to the engine or interior is designed to last no longer than the warranty. The iDrive may be the devil’s spawn and it can’t find its own ass w/ both hands when w/in 15 miles of a POI, but at least it doesn’t lock you out of entering an address when moving, like my 5 yr new ford does. The fact that it and some stand alone SatNavs can’t find the directions to my house is more than a little annoying.
Turns out even people well-read in the marque’s history can be wrong. But not to worry, I’m happy to help you see the path.
So, about the E46. I’m guessing you had not stared at posters of previous 3ers for years when the E46 sedan was introduced and ushered the 3 series into the “elegance for the masses” conversation. Have a look at the cutout of the rear door, the way it took the best of the E39 and made it look nimbler, more dynamic, and of a completely different flavor than the incognito E36 it replaced none too soon.
Another distinction that E46 wears (proudly) is that, with it, BMW found success and BMW drivers stopped giving each other thumbs up. It moved the brand from the enthusiast realm to mass producer.
I always appreciated Bangle’s willingness to try new shit. Whether successful or not is kind of in the eye of the beholder, but to my eye, his designs were interesting if nothing else. I especially liked his Z4, and I still find those to be very attractive. Even the Bangle-era 5 Series looked decent, although nothing will ever top the E39 in my mind (or in my heart).
That being said… The E38 was/is one of my favorite BMWs ever, and that E65 was an absolute abomination. I find that even the Bangle-era designs that I didn’t love back in the day (like the 5 Series) have actually aged pretty well. The Bangle 7 however is just hideous. Hideous then, hideous now. Timeless hideousness.
I like trying new shit, after all it’s all life’s rich tapestry. I am never going to try folk dancing though.
Maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel better, but I think a lot of the opinions here are driven by what each one of us grew up with. I was around 10 years old when the E60 came out, and I thought that car looked brilliant. I’m sure I put my physical safety at risk saying so, but I actually found the E39 a little frumpy as a kid. Sure it looked it looked good in M5 trim, but the garden variety models looked a little too round a bubbly in the way that a lot of ’90s cars do. Not as offensive as the ovoid Taurus of that era, but in the same vein.
At E39’s introduction, many magazines said exactly that. And while I’m way older than you, I’ll say that a car can become important and even beautiful when it appears at a time of tectonic shift in one’s personal life. E60 was that car for me.
The E90, E60, E63, and E65 are probably my least favorite iterations of each of their respective series, so for me this era is BMW’s nadir design-wise. Strangely enough, this era also produced the E86 Z4 coupe, which is one of my all- time favorites (so much so that I’ve owned one for the past ten years).
It’s been all downhill since Hofmeister, really.
That is the only logical take, after him to hell with the rest and the apologists too.
If Hoffmiester is your kink, I guess.
hah!
We’re not here to kink shame. Just butt shame.
COTD
Time for my hot take: BMW design died with Claus Luthe’s son. Well that’s a dark way to put it, but after Luthe was charged with manslaughter and had to leave BMW everything kind of went to shit. He was part of the development of the excellent, delicately proportioned late ’80s, early ’90s BMWs.
But he left and we had the handsome-but-a-retread E38 7-series and the ugly fat soap bar E39 5-series and E46 3-series – and I KNOW people are going to be mad at me for saying that, which doesn’t make it less true. Designs that were huge steps back from their immediate predecessors into the a depressing 90s slop, and designs that force a company to say “we need a new direction, we’re treading water.”
That kind of made the Bangle era inevitable. SOMETHING had to happen, BMW was effectively at a dead end. Now, we can speculate what the direction would have been if Claus Luthe was at the helm or someone else with an aesthetic less reliant on gimmicky surfaces when they had to make a change, but it was Bangle in charge and that’s what we got.
That said, I do think the E65 7-series has presence. It’s the presence of a Russian bodyguard who has been punched in the face too many times, but it does at least look a bit intimidating. I also think the E60 5-series works. But Adrian van Hooydonk needs to be stopped.
The market was retreating at the time of Bangle’s arrival. You either do volume at the bottom or super exclusivity at the top, and the middle ground where BMW (and Mercedes’ and Audi) operated was where you got killed.
BMW knew they had to do something, to get noticed and to push their market gains forward in a shrinking market. They made a big, bold, bet on a design revolution to be their differentiator.
But bold and controversial doesn’t mean good, even if familiarity has dulled their impact
Deliberate aesthetic theory, high-interest/confronting design through complex surfaces and lines=initial repulsion, transforming to appeal with familiarity.
They continue this currently.
I still hate ’em but!
You’re totally right, Adrian. Having an early ’90s 7 series, it was an amazing car, but played out. Someone had to be willing to design a new language for BMW, and to Bangle and BMW’s credit, they did. (Unlike, say Porsche, that has never had the courage to do so with the 911!) I don’t necessarily agree with that new language, but at least they made a change.
But Bangle was wrong about one thing. Not only did the Bangle Butt show up on every luxury car of the era, but many econoboxes looking to impress.
While I respectfully disagree with your take, as an E39/E36/E93 owner, your comment made me think The Bishop needs to do a feature here on BMW design if Bangle never got hired and they kept evolving their then current designs!
I will say I think the E46, E38 and E39 era was when BMW was at its peak. In fact, it was Bangle that helped design the E46 in the first place, he only started shaking things up later.
Bangle didn’t really do much design work at all for his first coupe of years with the company. They had a minimal design department and had taken a very conservative approach (which is kind of ironic considering those cars you mention are now considered BMWs high water mark). He spent the first couple of years learning the company (which was/is very rigid, hierarchical and engineering led) and setting up a fully staffed, fully equipped studio.
It’s important to look at timelines, remember a cars design is usually frozen about 5 years before it is seen in public, and at first Bangle knew he couldn’t make any waves as you say. So although he was chief when the E46 came out, it’s highly unlikely he had any or wanted to have any influence over it (the E39 would have finalized before he arrived).
I’m a fan and defender of Bangle BMW’s, even though I’ll admit few of them were truly beautiful. But the key thing to remember with Bangle is, for all the tricks he played with surfacing, the proportions and BMW design signatures stayed rock-solid. Grilles were of a reasonable size. Windows stayed pretty large, in part due to that “Bangle Butt”. The Hofmeister kink was preserved. The “angel eye” headlights were one of the most innovative and recognizable branding elements ever conceived. Bangle was encouraging his designers to innovate, but within a framework. What’s happening at BMW now is a lack of a strong design vision, and it started with Von Hooydonk’s arrival at the head post. Those “post-Bangle” cars looked like half-hearted apologies, decaf versions of what came before, often looking handsome enough but lacking a unified vision. And now the vision seems to be a total break with, or purposeful perversion of, all recognizable BMW design elements.
As for Marc Newson with an “N” at the end, it’s pretty easy to dismiss criticism from a guy whose only car design looked literally like an appliance. But I’m being a bit prickly here.
Bangle’s cars did have a clear direction and the fundamentals were right, which is not something that can be said of BMWs now.
I have on several occasions expressed the opinion that Chris Bangle should be tried for crimes against humanity for what he did to BMW styling. I loved ’80s and ’90s BMWs (particularly ’80s BMWs; I have a thing for understated, boxy cars), but I completely lost interest in the brand once his styling took over. To me, his vehicles are absolutely hideous.
That being said, I find his designs less off-putting today than I did when they were new. A lot of modern vehicles have random contours and creases, lights with weird shapes, bizarre grills, etc., so Bangle BMWs don’t stick out so much. I would say that modern BMWs actually look better than most other new cars. That is more a function of other vehicles getting uglier, rather than BMW styling getting better, though. So I guess maybe Bangle’s styling wasn’t ugly, it was just ahead of its time?
Do not doubt your heart. Bangle’s styling was still ugly.