2009 BMW 750i: You Owe Chris Bangle an Apology

At first, I didn't really like the 2002 7-Series, but the design grew on me and started to really like it. The same went for the Z4 and the 6-Series.

I am still not a fan of the X3, X5 or 5-Series, design-wise, but am warming up to the X6.

Anyway, I do not like the changes that have been made to lessen the Bangle-ness of the newer 7-Series... in fact, I now miss the look of the 2002s.

Good read! I own a BMW, and to me, the logo has nothing to do with my ownership. If anything, I am almost embarrassed that people see my car as some fancy toy, because to me, I see an attractive car that is perhaps a little pricey, but drives very well for the money. While I am never satisfied with my car choices, this is the first car that I get excited about driving every time I drive it, and I think a lot of that comes from the look. I love the look of the current 3 series.

I agree that the current 7 is not so attractive. To me, it looks like a bloated E90 with dulled edges.

To me, the 2002 7 series falls in the same category of ugliness as the Aztek is in! Looking at it truly makes me sick, to a level that car design is capable of making someone sick.

As a current 3 series driver I also object to your notion on the reason people like/buy/drive a BMW. In fact, to me as an auto enthusiast, It seems way more shallow to focus solely on innovative design over all else. As long as the design is not a deal braker the way a car drives and feels ranks way higher. Heck, even safety and environmental impact ranks higher!

The problem with the 2002 7 series was that the design was a deal braker!! The same holds true, in my case, for the 6 series that in my opinion looks just as repulsive! However, I can handle the Z4 and even the 1 series.

Having said all of that, I can acknowledge that elements of Bangle's design were truly innovative and creative and understandably left their impact on other car's design. The current S class would be a good example of a more successful Bangle-butt!

Whenever someone is saying how ugly Chris Bangle's cars are or how they wonder why he was in charge of design, I just say one thing:

BMW e46 Coupe

I would argue that many believe that to be one of the most beautiful Bimmers (especially in M3 form) and that was designed by Bangle.

Never thought that the '02 7-series looked especially ugly. I always thought that iDrive, however, was not worth the money.

I am not howling in derision at the current-gen 7-series, though. BMWs were never about exterior beauty, but instead are about the driving experience.

I liked the post-facelift E65, but I never warmed up to the E60.

The 2002 AND 2009 7 and the current (2004?) 5 are some ugly cars. I like the E9X 3, the E46 and the new 1.

Right on. Hell, I thought the Z4 and the current 5-series were beautiful. The '02-'08 7-series at least had a totally imposing presence, even if it wasn't exactly "pretty".

Things when wrong when BMW started to water-down the "flame-surfacing" language, particularly with the E90.

"To their way of thinking, BMW was simply making the same kind of sausage in different lengths"

Same can be said to Audi...

Nice soliloquy for Chris Bangle :)

JordanW--I don't think that Bangle designed the E46. The styling itself shows this as well- the car looks like an evolution of the E36; another sausage link if you will.

I do agree that the E46 is the best looking 3 series ever. I've owned a 330Ci and currently own an E46 M3.

As another BMW owner, I love my 3 series. I think it looks great and drives even better. I'm worried what the next generation will look like without someone like Chris Bangle to push the envelope a little.

Interesting POV. Of all the designs listed, the only one that he was responsible for that I don't find attractive is the 6 series. To me, it looks like they had a good design, then the clay melted a bit.

Sorry, no dice. Just because BMW's still having problems getting a good 7er designed doesn't mean Bangle's was good. To me, both the previous 7 and the current 5, along with the Z4, X3, X6, and the new 5er fastback are all unpleasant designs. The original iDrive was a mess, it's taken how many generations to get it right?

And it's obvious Bangle had nothing to do with the e46 - it has not one of his vaunted styling devices/cliches.

my wife drives an e90 and i think it's the best version of bangleness. the 5 series isn't too bad, either.

having said that, i think bangle murdered the 7-series. it wasn't progress in my mind, it was just... different, something new for the sake of new. if it had been a different brand of car i might not of hated it so much. but it just wasn't bmw "enough" in my mind.

having said that, you can't argue with his impact on car design.

as far as bmw drivers are concerned, my wife didn't care about what car she drove. but i told her, "if you drive this car, you will buy it". and we did! and now she wants another one after our e90!

my lawyer friend who leases a new 5 series every 3 years says he has to drive a nice car or he worries his clients will think less of him. maybe/maybe not. but he can afford a mercedes, an infiniti, a jaguar, etc... he chooses the bmw every time because how much fun it is to drive compared to all the rest.

i'm doing some research now into suv's because we are thinking of having a kid and i might need to get rid of my mustang. about the only suv i am willing to sell my mustang gt for is the 2007+ x3. yeah, not the most beautiful suv, but it is the one most fun to drive!

I will say it again as I have said it before. The "Bangle-Butt" was inspired by the 1997 Mercedes-Benz Maybach concept. It was NOT an original design element. Bangle found a way to make it perform actual aerodynamic functions, but the idea had already been explored by "stodgy-Mercedes". Bangle recieved credit because he made it a focal point while the original Mercedes-design (which later appeared on the production Maybach and was moved to the W221) was quite subtle.

Anyway, I pretty much hated all of Bangle's later designs, but he got people talking about BMW in a way that they hadn't for years. That is never a bad thing for a business.

"Bangle and his associates decided that the classic BMW shape had gone about as far as it could since the first 3 Series was introduced in 1976."

Now aren't you glad that, 8 or 9 years ago, nobody at Porsche decided that the classic 911 shape had gone about as far as it could, and that nobody at GM decided that the classic Corvette shape had gone about as far as it could?

Instead of deciding that the classic shape had gone as far as it could, they took it further. If that's being stodgy, give me stodgy.

That last generation of BMW sausages *still* looks great to me. I bet a good designer could have evolved them, if he were stodgy enough to recognize their excellence.

I have to disagree with your conclusion, because BMWs are finally starting to look better. I'll take the sausage-in-different-lengths approach if it means not having to look at monstrosities like the original bangle 7 or the E60 5-series anymore. And yes, the pre-bangle BMWs still look good, it's true.

I can't deny that Bangle really changed car design, though, and there are lots of great looking cars out today that take from his playbook. But Bangle didn't design pretty cars, he just designed weird cars and other designers took his ideas and made them work.

Give the man credit where its due. His designs are/where unique, modern, and instantly recognizable.

I consider the inside and outside of the current 5-series to be an absolute travesty of what that car had become in 2001-2003: timeless, beautiful sports sedan for everything from family guys to executives to people who wanted a 4-door sports car.

The new 5-series has a terrible interior and awkward front end. Sure, it looks better for 2008/2009 and it looks better when it's a sport packaged equipped 550i/M5/535i...

The 3-series it looking sharper with a revised rear end and now that the chrome moustache is gone on the 2006-2008 3-series.

The 1-series is so much not what it could be.....much like Porsche made lots of money with teh Cayenne (people who wanted the brand but couldn't justify 2-seats), BMW needs to make alot of money with an expanded, and beautified, 1-series line-up including the hatchback and sedan.

I give Bangle credit for many things, but I look forward to Adrian Van Hooydonk's new products.

Joe

Even though I'm a die hard E39 (especially 2003's) fan, I love the E61 5 series. I like that it looks mean from every angle. The kind of mean that wants to be driven hard every time. Pretty damn sexy

I still think the 1995 to 2001 7 Series was the best version of BMW's flagship sedan.

The new 7 may be boring, but the Bangle styling was mostly horrible. BMW did a great job moving away from Bangle with the latest 3 coupe, but they ruined the proportions with the short greenhouse.

Sorry but the last good looking mass produced car BMW released was in 1998...the e46 sedan. Even then the e30 is still a better looking car.

Sadly, most the generic blandness that is BMW today is now showing up everywhere else.

I disagree with 90% of your thesis.

The 10% is that BMW was stuck in a styling rut.

Post-2002, BMW has departed from the impeccably engineered sports sedans that earned it's reputation in favor of a product mix that plays to its $400 sunglass-wearing, cellphone yapping stereotypical buyers.

More importantly, Bangle's creditors assume the only way to break out of the sausage industry is to go avante-garde.

There's nothing to say one can't be innovate evolutionarily. Innovation and being pleasing to the eye aren't mutually exclusive.

I'd argue it's easier to design from a blank canvas. The greater challenge is moving forward while paying homage to the past and keeping it pretty.

The cessation of complaints is not because the detractors are coming around, it's because they're giving up and moving on.

Jordan, let me get this straight, your logic, such as it were, is this: the prior-generation 7-series is, in retrospect, good design and attractive, simply because the current 7-series is so bland and unattractive?

That is not logic. That is farce. That is, to put it bluntly, analogous to saying a Mustang II was in retrospect good design because the 1979 Mustang was so insipid.

Genuinely attractive vehicles in BMW's current lineup: 3-series coupe, new Z4, M3 sedan or coupe. And that is all. The rest are all each painful to look at in some (usually small) way. That fact may make them "art" to some, but it does not make them good design.

I think this brand new 7 series is disgusting. Unlike most people, I really liked the look of the 7 series when it was redesigned. But still, a 2001 740IL Sport Package is the best looking 7 series ever produced. It's got that stately yet muscular BMW look that this new one lacks.

blau32, right on!

So, the BMW design renaissance is already over? I for one think the latest 3 coupe is so very close to being beautiful, but somebody backed out in the end (pun intended).

It's too bad we never got a modern day E9 "bat", E24 "shark", or a 507 that wasn't a bloated status symbol. Maybe we'll luck out and start getting a few more affordable choices from a certain ever-growing portfolio in Turin.

Ok, I think the 02 7 series was disgusting. It didn't age well, and still looks bloated and tacked together. C'mon, look at it- the only thing the 7 series did noticeably different was that no attempt was made whatsoever to integrate its numerous styling cues, so people noticed them. That's really Chris Bangle's hallmark.

Bangle would later find success in the 5 series (the most successful BMW design I've seen).

This article is pretty good. The current 7 series is a good looking car, but the E65 is a more interesting car to look at. The E65 is the most revolutionary car….period. Tons of car companies copied the bangle but and tons of car companies have copied i-drive. Whether you think MMI or Command is better, there is no denying that BMW pioneered the technology. I also feel that the interior is better looking than the current 7. Although the new one has a slightly higher quality feel to it, it is generic. The radio comes straight out of an X5 and there is tons of parts bin sharing. The E65 is quirky and original.

So, saying that, I am happing that I just bought one of the last brand new E65s in the country. Including taxes, it was over $22,000 off sticker. Hell Yeah!

The only Bangle influenced designs I dislike are the 2002 (pre-2006 or so facelift) 7 series (rear end only) and the X3. The rest are unique, muscular, and fantastic. I never did understand all the Bangle hate.

The new 7 is bland, uninspired, and inconspicuous. Like a Lexus.

This is how you write entries in this blog. This is A+.

Donna DeRosa, are you listening?

It may have been the cool thing to hate Bangle and his designs, but I certainly didn't hang with that group; I love everything from the 7 down to the 3. To this day I see nothing ugly about any of them, most certainly not the E60 or the E65.

The F01 may be toned down compared to the previous gen, but it still has a sexiness the awkward s-class, the conservative A8 don't possess. It'll be interesting to see how much is copied by the competition.

The 2002 7-Series, whether you like the styling or not, was very successful for BMW -- look at the sales figures compared to the revered 2001 7-Series. And I love the 01 7, especially with Sport Package!
BTW, Chris Bangle did have a say in the design of the E46.

I still don't like the 2002-2008 7-series. That being said, I love the current 3 series, and I love the new 7 series. I've seen a handful of the new 7s on the road and I can't stop looking at them (in a good way). So much less appalling than the old 7. However, Chris Bangle was also responsible for the E46, which is just about the pinnacle of modern BMW design in my opinion. I have to pat him on the back for that.

@ctpax: What's with the hate? -- Donna

There are two kinds of BMW owners -- those who bought the car w/ a manual transmissions and those who got the auto tranny. In the last 15 years or so, BMW has more and more catered to the automatic driving crowd, who tend not to appreciate the driving dynamics of BMW but more so the prestige of the marque. The people w/ manual trannies tend to enjoy driving the car more. Of course these are generalizations but they are more true than not, and help to explain how and why BMW ended up where it is now.

I agree with some of the previous posts. As reviled as the 02-08 7 series was by auto journalists, it is by far BMWs most successful best selling 7 series ever. The new one is very generic and seems behind the S-class, Jaguar XJ, and i bet you the new Audi A8 (im betting it will be beautiful because Audi is on a absolute Design streak) out of the gate. Its destined to be a forgettable vehicle that sort of fills the top of BMW line up.

"the E65 broke records to become the best-selling 7-series iteration ever, especially after its 2006 facelift. [1][2]" courtesy of Wikipedia. You may try to say that it was still ugly, but it was purposeful. It was a car that knew what it wanted to be and looked imposing and had a strong road presence. If you wanted a boring and conservative sedan, you could always buy an S-class. The motoring public ate it up too, probably because they were tired of old designs. And no matter what you think, you can't deny that Chris Bangle brought huge success to BMW. The Z4 especially is a great design. It still looks new enough to be on sale today, 7 years after its release. Does anybody here even remember what the 2001 Chrysler Sebring looks like? Chris Bangle did great things for BMW.

For all those people who are saying it was a great design because of high sales:

The E65 was the cheapest 7-Series ever produced when you convert the currency due to inflation. People are ALWAYS going to buy the most car they can get, and the 7 was cheap for a flagship. That accounted for sales, not the design. Likewise, the W220 Mercedes was the cheapest S-Class ever and it was also the best selling in the line's history. Both the E65 and the W220 also have the distinction of being the most problem prone in their brand's history. Both were thoroughly lackluster cars.

We should be embracing the engineering superiority of the F1 rather than complaining about its more conservative styling (which, by the way, is far more likely to attract buyers in this economy than the "Look at me!" E65).

This really seems like a serious BMW crowd. I think other than m_thrizzle, no one has pointed to BMW's real problem. It has become a way to get 'prestige', not have a unique automobile. Truly, the 3 series ushered in the era of BMW as car for arrivistes who didn't care about cars as cars, let alone as art (would any of those people have considered a CSL, even in the past?). Bangle tried hard, but the die has been cast. I think BMW is well on its way to having some of the same negative connotations that Cadillac has. In 30 years, we just might think of BMW as the car grumpy old men use to feel special.

The difference between BMW and Audi is that Audi's got the classic trapezoidal grill that is not aggressive, more "classy", as well as cleaner, less weird designs.

BMWs are for snobs (in my opinion - way too much money for an ugly car), Audi is the brand for successful people who have worked their way up.

Look at the S5, R8, Q5, all look AMAZING with their DRLs.

"What's with the hate?" <- street slang?

Is this what managing editors use to communicate nowadays?

Anyway. No hate whatsoever. In fact I'm the friendliest guy on this forum. I only wish I could read more good posts from you - that's all. But I think you've already figured that one out.

I own Z4 3.0 and not a day goes by that I don't see kids and adults give me a thumbs up. Its testament to Bangle's design philosophy and what he's achieved in separating BMW's from cookie-cutter designs.

Can a car be art? Well Bangle certainly thought so. Today (most BMW's) are art in motion thanks to Bangle. Just wait another 10-20 years and his designs will be classics.

mosesdupree, I see your point. I think many of the BMW drivers that post here think of their cars as Bimmers, not Beemers. Generally manual tranny, people who look at driving as an involving endeavor, people who know brake isn't spelled "break."
Most of the people who look at the roundel and think "Oh, it is a BMW, it is expensive, I must have one," think of their cars as "Beemers." I don't think you'll see too many of those here, but at BMW dealerships and on the streets, they're legion.
But I don't think the Bavarians will ever totally lose sight of what earned the company and its cars their initial reputation -- it does have to exist in Germany. It'll never be an "old man's car."
Oh, and lieutryan -- I am not a snob, but it's useless to defend myself against someone who thinks like you. Car enthusiasm isn't about that kind of senseless name-calling.

subaru123, I am also a non hater of the 7 series design.

It will always come down to preference for most, it is frustrating to see that Chris Bangle was criticized for his designs. I absolutely adore the styling of the 7 series, old and new, 6 series, 5 series, and especially the 3(e46, e9x). All of which are absolutely brilliant in their styling.

Maybe it's because of my modern style preference, maybe it's because I'm European born, or maybe i just love BMW. Whatever the case, I am not alone, and it is truly a shame if Chris left as a result of the criticism he received.

Even if i didn't like the designs, I'll take outlandish off the charts styling over the numerous hideous monstrosities produced by the big 3. (PT cruiser/PT cruiser convertible, HHR, to name a couple. Not in the same class, I know)

So before people start making outlandish statements about the styling, or what the brand represents, consider it's strictly individual preference(or maybe your taste is just out of wack).

The popular disgust at the new 750 design in 2002 was largely based on the simple fact that its predecessor, the 750i E38 body design was so damn beautiful. That kind of stylish but understated conservative elegance was one of several reasons consumers bought a German car in the first place. I will never understand the decision to hire an American designer to design German cars. I was under the impression that people buy German cars to get a car that looks like it was designed by a German designer.

I honestly saw nothing wrong with the Chris Bangle design on the 2002 7series. To me a flagship sedan is supposed to represent more than a prestige factor... its supposed to make a statement. Its supposed to have a dominance on the road. That is what makes a flagship car a true flagship.

During the 90's bmw and mercedes flagship sedans had become tawdry and seemed to blend in with those lexus', acuras, and even toyotas around them.

Bangle I believe truly brought back the spirit of the flagship sedan. It might have not been to everyone's liking but it had a presence and solidity about it that demanded respect on the road. And guess what, Mercedes followed in bmw's foot steps with the current s-class. The previous generation s-class made no type of statement at all other than the "s-class" badge on its trunk lid. The current model has taken on a distinctive look that could not be confused with any other vehicle on the road. It makes a strong statement. It screams top level ingenuity.

So I will definitely have to agree with Jordan here and say that Bangle deserves some major respect. I truly believe he single handedly put the word "flagship" back in the business of luxury automobiles.

And for those who complain that the E38 body design was perfect and nothing could ever replace it.... please get serious. By no way am I stating the E38 design wasn't pretty much perfect. I too loved its simple lines, german solidity, and no gimmicks design.

I hate to say it but time is moving forward and so is design. People need to stop being stubborn and learn to accept something new and maybe even a little exotic looking.

Jaguar is the perfect example of a company that was too scared to change its design. The current style XJ personally is one the the prettiest cars on the road, and will go down as being one of the most classicly styled flagship sedans. But Jaguar was living in the past and guess what happened. Jaugar stayed in the slow lane while companies like BMW, Mercedes, Audi, and even Lexus flew right past them with more contemporary and modern designs.

So what has Jaguar been doing these past 3 years or so? They have finally introduced some luxury vehicles that are ready to run with the big boys.

So to those who are dearly holding on to the E38 style... its time to let go. You can continue to be bitter, but design (just like everything else in the world) has progressed. Its time to embrace change and give something new a chance. Luxury automobiles are designed to make a statement in all categories. I believe Bangle accomplished this. If you don't want to make a statement in your German luxury vehicle then you might find a perfect home with Volkswagen.

"Whenever someone is saying how ugly Chris Bangle's cars are or how they wonder why he was in charge of design, I just say one thing:

BMW e46 Coupe

I would argue that many believe that to be one of the most beautiful Bimmers (especially in M3 form) and that was designed by Bangle."

That's because it is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!