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Bangle Has the Last Laugh

Just over four years ago, BMW launched its redesigned 7-series and shocked the automotive world. Before the new seven, BMW design was exceptionally conservative -- consistent, crisp, angular and just aggressive enough to let you know that the person behind the wheel meant business. Often, the company would launch entirely new cars into the market without anyone actually noticing a change from the previous model.

The 1972-81 BMW E12 5-series:



The all-new 5-series that followed it, the 1982-1988 E28:

The 1988-1993 E32 7-series:



The all-new 7-series that followed it, the E38 (1994-2001):

The 2002 7-series was a radical departure from everything that had preceded it. The quad headlights, kidney grille and Hofmeister Kink all made it easily recognizable as a BMW, but that was about all. The trunklid protruded unusually from the car's flanks; the front end featured an interesting reinterpretation of the traditional quad-headlight design; concave shapes dominated the flanks; and most noticeably, many of the car's interior buttons were replaced with an interface called iDrive: a single screen, with a knob/button to control it.

The loquacious poster boy for BMW's radical change was Chris Bangle, a sharp-dressing Wisconsin native given to statements like "The surface is nature's way of telling us where the contact point is." People may not have understood him, but they did react to the new car's appearance, which was roundly criticized by both the automotive media and by BMW traditionalists. Bangle, whose name is one vowel away from another common word with more negative connotations, took considerable heat from people unpleased with what he had done to their favorite marque.

Since then, BMW has extended the design themes first inaugurated with the 7-series into the rest of their range. Say what you want about the aesthetics, the market has now voted: today, BMW announced a few weeks ago, BMW announced record revenue for sales for 2005, with a year-over-year growth rate of just under 10%.

It would be a mistake to credit all of BMW's sales growth to Bangle's new designs; much of it also comes from their expansion of their range into other segments, as exemplified by the X5, X3 and 1-series hatchback. But as we've seen recently from other manufacturers, it takes great product design to really succeed in the auto industry these days. It's not just about not screwing up; playing it safe can just as quickly lead to failure. This is why BMW's leap of faith, and the success that has followed from it, is in many ways an object lesson in successful product design.

Lesson 1: Your most important customers are sometimes the ones you don't yet have.

The consumption of luxury goods is increasingly tilted toward emerging markets like Russia, China and other parts of Asia -- all places where Mercedes has dominated the market for high-end luxury cars.

Lesson 2: You have to really know why your customers are buying what you offer.

Spend any time in Russia or Asia, and it doesn't take long to notice two things critical to the luxury car industry: 1) many more people don't drive themselves, and 2) the luxury goods that sell tend to be a good deal more ostentatious than they are in western Europe or the United States. Put those together, and you can see why the previous big BMWs never sold well in those markets. They could obsess over the car's dynamic qualities all day, but if the car didn't have any presence -- didn't look impressive rolling down the street -- it would never sell like a Mercedes.

With all the breaks from tradition, it's also important to point out the ways in which the 2002 7-series was more like a BMW than ever. Dynamically, it was better than anything that had come before it; still the sports car of the luxo-boats. The fit and finish was up to par, and the important mechanical bits have proven to be reliable.

In many ways, the 2002 7-series was a work in progress. The iDrive interface was deeply flawed, and the car came in for some minor aesthetic revisions just two years after launch. But better to launch, try and learn than never to change and slowly turn into a fossil. For that, we can thank Chris Bangle.

Tokyo Auto Salon, Day 2

Toyota

Somehow, Toyota's product design remains weak and derivative, especially when it concerns the cars they produce for their domestic market. Exhibit A is this Toyota Crown, sporting a BMW 7-series boot mashed together with a Mercedes S-class grille on the front.

Motorsport Pavilion

The Motorsport pavilion was new this year, and showed a nice variety of competition cars, including last year's MacLaren and Ferrari F1 cars. The real attraction, though, was the Gran Turismo 4 booth, where 15 or so stations were all outfitted with Recaro seats and even rollcages. Serious stuff.

More madness from the Nihon Auto College

The faux Mercedes and Chryslers documented in yesterday's post were just the beginning from the Nihon Auto College. They also showed a few other fantastically bizarre creations, including a odd mashup of a 50s Plymouth with something straight out of an anime movie was a particular favorite. At the botttom, this green... well, we'll leave it at that.

Subaru

No great revelations at the Subaru booth. They did, however, display the latest evolution of the STi, a car whose name most people would find longer and less memorable than the randomly-assigned license plate it would wear on public roads. But to a Subaru geek, the WRX STi S204 is all they'd need to hear.

This factory Legacy was also pretty sharp:

Mitsubishi

By the time of this show, the big news for Mitsubishi was already old news. The old news being the tenth evolution of the eponymous Lancer, which debuted at Frankfurt late last year. In person, it works; it's a much more coherent shape than the current one, which really relied on flares and wings to hide the pedestrian economy car beneath.

My favorite at the Mitubishi stand, though, was this racecar based on the wagon version of the present Lancer:

Fixing the botched facelift

Leave it to the aftermarket's plastic surgeons to fix what Subaru clearly couldn't -- the new Impreza's regrettably botched nose job. Aftermarket grilles to remedy the problem were widespread:

Daihatsu

Pint-size Z4 clone:



And the second-cutest racecar ever:

More hybrid love, this time from Honda

Photos of Honda's hybrid Civic have already made the rounds of the net, but that doesn't detract from how nice it looks in person. Too bad it's no longer available with a manual transmission. The wheels really fill out the arches nicely, and almost make it look like a 3/4-scale Audi A6.

Hartge

When BMW is making such unbelievable performance cars from the factory, what's a proud tuner to do? Make the lower-end models look better, apparently, as you can tell from this mildly warmed-over 525i.

Miscellanea

Race-prepped S2000:

Big-brake kits for the Smart car. Don't bother asking why.

Tokyo Auto Salon 2006, Day 1

The Japanese have long been obsessed with customizing their cars, and the Tokyo Auto Salon is where it all comes out. I arrived late in the afternoon, so what follows are a few photos from day 1.

Mazda

Mazda showed a hydrogen powered RX-8, and channeled a little Bugeye Sprite for their Circuit edition MX-5.

Nismo

Nissan's aftermarket division had a strong presence, with a few interesting 350Zs on display.

If there's one thing Japanese are crazier about than customized cars, it's teenage girls. Put them both in one place, preferably with the girls wearing just enough cloth to include a tire company's logo, and you have racequeens. You can see why they get so excited about this event.







Team Goodyear poses for the crowd:

A Chrysler 300C? Not so fast -- it's sort of a 300C-dric, a rebodied Nissan Cedric with some extra sheetmetal brought to you by the Nihon Auto College. This tradition of turning generic-looking Japanese cars into something more distinctive has long roots in Japan.



At the same booth, a Lexus L-S-class:

Make it low, and make it white. That is all.

Nice to see the Prius get a little tuning love. It's all a bit silly -- why the wider tires in the rear when it's a front wheel-drive car?

It's always nice to see people doing interesting things with Scoobies. This Legacy at the Gialla booth was particularly clean.