Quote:
Originally Posted by epbrown
Quick: name the head designers of the previous 2 BMW product cycles, without Googling. Or name the current head of design at Mercedes-Benz and Audi. Even if you can, you have to know that hardly anyone else could. Few people gave a damn about BMW design before Chris Bangle set the new direction, or car design in general.
None of the current cars will be historical masterpieces? How common is it for any mass-produced car to become a historical masterpiece? What, you see the E36/E39/E38 being hailed for centuries to come? Those cars are competent feats of engineering and little more. What is there to say about their design? That they're innocuous and inoffensive? That the average person had trouble telling the different models apart? The cars could have been designed by IBM's laptop division during the same period.
Bangle has already succeeded beyond your wildest imaginings. Because of him, people are talking about BMW design, not just other designers and a couple of European car magazines, but everyone. People feel about it, care about it, have strong opinions about it, discuss it - some intelligently, some not so much. People are behaving exactly as they do about art. The only other car designer that's been talked about as much is Harley Earl, dead before Bangle was born, I think.
Lastly, do yourself a favor and don't mention Enzo Ferrari again when discussing car design. During his time - and long after - the company looked to external design houses for their car exteriors, Pininfarina, Bertone, etc. He couldn't have cared less about car design - his chief interest was in racing; he wasn't particularly good at, or even concerned about, anything else.
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And that is the problem exactly. I can't name the guy who does aston martins and recently switched to jag. I can't recall the names of the designers of Alfas. Don't begin to ask me who designed the S5 or the A8 or the CLK black or the latest SL... but I do know Chris Bangle.
I also spent more time learning about Hitler than Lincoln. Bin Laden is probably the best known name in the US right now. The names Erik Harris & Dillon Klebold, Cho, and McVeigh are more recognizable than any "hero" I can think of.
There is a line between being famous and being infamous... and a lot of us believe that Bangle is on the wrong side of that line.