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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I totally agree, you couldn't have said it better. I believe Bangle set up a new era in design and at the very best example of design,... CARS. Because there are some other great designers, Karim Rashid, Phillipe Stark, etc. But their apportion to design is different, one thing at a time,... furniture, ergonomics, living spaces, living complex, product design, silverware, etc... one at a time,... a car combines every single aspect of design, and it moves!.... that's why he's so focused on creating a piece of art.
I just got a Z4 which has been soooo criticized for it's design, but when you observe the car shapes and proportions, you understand what Bangle did and keeps doing,... I honestly think he's the greates influence in car and overall design.