I missed this!! Yes. and Yes, and maybe we shouldn’t discuss that last one. 
I saw this today. thoughts?
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/bmw-neue-klasse-concept-sets-tone-brands-ev-reinvention
My first thoughts:
- I like the grille a lot more than whatever they are doing now.
- The proportions are interesting. The way they lowered the greenhouse makes the body look slimmer.
- I get Buick vibes from most of the design. The back feels Reatta or Pontiac G8. I guess the '80s are back, right?
- What’s with the black line across the glass? Some of the detailing on these BMWs feels like designers going, “Our design is too boring, let’s draw a line with a sharpie on it, that will fix it”. Weird.
- Surfacing. Some good, some bad. Curious to see how the production version looks.
Did the guys in Munich see the light or hear the thunder? Maybe…
Interesting interview with Domagoj Dukec concerning the new design, social responsibility and how the BMW customer wants to bee seen in traffic.
A much needed change.
The near blank canvas of a “sedan” may be read in different ways. For me it has strong italian vibes of 80ies Alfas (Giulietta, 166) and Maseratis.
That maximal reduction might need some honing to give a clear BMW identity, again.
But it leap into a most interesting direction, at least for me.
I’m so sick of bmw having no direction or consistency.
They’ve messed up all the badging and series numbering (for a while even number was 4 door…, then switched it, the number doesn’t relate to the engine, all the stupid m550xics2.0vsX45 random combos…)
They’ve messed up the grille. I can’t even keep track of current models have the big vertical
Beaver teeth or not. Some do?
They’ve totally screwed up the packaging. GT coupe sedans, …
They’ve lost not only the visual of the grille but the round lights. The kink. The short front overhang. They have no idea what a bmw is.
Nobody knows what’s electric or ice. Are they still doing hydrogen? What’s an i car?
Styling is all over. Some aggressive. Some cubist. Some “normal”…
Seriously. Fuck BMW.
I have zero confidence this is a consistent new direction of anything. It’s also kind of unfinished looking….
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The hood-snout-grille as seen here and a few precious EV’s is perhaps meant to be a counter to the delicious V8 M3 ‘bulge’… I find it underwhelming, a milquetoast lead-in to an unemotional grille feature.
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Looking back through this thread I found this:
IF they had developed this to market ready by now I might not ride in a Tesla…
(was posted by Ralph in 2017…)
Just to remember you of the status quo this time in 2023:
Bringing the “Vision Neue Klasse” to more BMWness is not as dead easy, as you’d think.
With the double round headlights, the hofmeister and the L-shaped rear lights they inherited a lot of design real estate, that was BMWs own since the eighties. And most of it got squandered during the last 2 decades. Bringing everything back into one cohesive concept, that looks to the future, not to the past will be interesting.
I wish they could go as radical as Lancia.
(Whom are non existent at the moment…)
mo-i
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I saw a X70 in traffic today. Interesting how they threw out all the old BMW design elements, but they are dead set on getting us to love the hockey sticks under the door.
Thank goodness for this. It made me truly happy to be able to lust for a BMW again…
I’m not usually active on the forum so I can’t upload a picture or even share a link to the Core77 article, but do yourself a favour and read the post titled " BMW’s Designers Return to Earth with Shockingly Clean Design" on the main page and celebrate that the era of design by addition might be over.
It would be interesting to understand if it’s the same team of people that just sobered up, or if there’s been an internal shake up to their design team.
Read the article. Agreed that its an antidote to the ‘design-by-addition’ formula which was rapidly leading nowhere.
I’m not an auto industry or regulation expert but do wonder how the distinct undercuts (pronounced shark nose, wedge rear end) can translate to a production car.
Love the art direction even though clearly derivative of mid-late 1960’s, down to the grain…
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I am 100% with @rkuchinsky on this one. That said, if we have to see some sort of change to hope that they’re moving in some sort of better direction, this Neue Klasse vision is probably the best I’ve seen. It’s very BMW 70’s-ish but they better round off that Hoffmeister kink or I’m gonna beat the sh*t out of some poor guy at my local dealer when I see a production version of it in person (in 8 or so years).
I believe that the bumper fascia doesn’t need to be protruding these days as long as the underlying chassis structure still provides crush zones. Plus, there’s no longer a ‘take off the bumper fascia and replace it’ type of simple repair. Instead that very thing now translates to over $2800 in repairs.
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I was shocked to see that heated seat plan. I can see them trying that with leased cars (that they still own) but if I buy one of their freakin’ cars it’s now mine, not theirs to activate and deactivate features. Bizarre!
I think the rear is the nicest part of this car, but it looks like a Camaro EV SUV. The rest looks generic and unathletic.
I find the interior looks crooked in this photo. It reminds me of the original Mini, whose steering wheel was angled slightly outward.
I was gonna snark ‘someone beat it with the Ugly Stick’ but I think they used something larger than a stick. The Ugly 2x8".
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Here we have the BMW CE 02, Sondors Metacycle and the Live Wire S2 Del Mar (respectively). All roughly in the same ‘urban riding’ market segment. I don’t understand how BMW can claim to be in the same market class, let alone to have something that can compete on design. The cognitive dissonance is astounding! WTF!
Check your link plz
Fixed, thanks.