advertisement


Ever wondered why recent BMWs look so unspeakably awful*?

At least Kias aren't visually offensive, unlike the current crop of BMWs which look horrific. There is no excuse for making cars look so wilfully hideous, you can have a big grille on a car and it look good - see the current Volvo S90/V90, or you can get it wrong like Ford did with the 'wide-mouthed frog Scorpio' in the 1990s, which bombed sales-wise. Good looking cars will always sell, ugliness always puts buyers off. GM had the arrogance in the 1990s/2000s of "Whatever we build, it will sell" resulting in oddities like the Signum (not actually a bad car, having owned one) and the Sintra which was an abomination. It made them bankrupt. BMW are going down the same path.
Kia do very well at selling automotive white goods. This used to be Vauxhall's stock in trade. Not many drivers got excited about Cavaliers and Astras but they were great cars. I had one of each, both were indestructible. They lost their way in the mid 90s. I bet Kia will be doing very well in 2040 turning out competent, dull cars for people who want a car just like I want a washing machine and a central heating boiler. What brand of boiler have I got? I don't know. A white one. It runs on gas.
 
...unlike the current crop of BMWs which look horrific. There is no excuse for making cars look so wilfully hideous,

Given that it means that no-one talks about:

1) The designs of rival German Marques as much.

2) The migration from the aspirational 'ultimate driving machine' of the 80s / 90s into a more mainstream brand of mostly automotive white goods dull engines and boring handling.

I'd say job jobbed. Trebles all 'round in Munich.
 
The most distinctive, aspirational BMW design of all,

caoBqNS.jpg


we’ll be back in these shortly, battery powered of course.
 
BMW and Mercedes have both lost the plot, both in design and in build quality. Both have raced into the mass market and lost what attracted their original buyers.
 
*IMHO, of course. I guess that, when you're inside one, you don't actually see the outside. You just have to park it nose-in, so that you never have to look at that part.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/features/why-bmw-design-will-stay-polarising-purpose

Wonder how much he's getting paid to talk so much BS?

If he wan't BMWs to stand out, maybe he can get them to design something that's actually good looking? They don't look much h different to KIA's or anyone else these days or have KIA caught and the rest them up?
 
BMW and Mercedes have both lost the plot, both in design and in build quality. Both have raced into the mass market and lost what attracted their original buyers.

Bear in mind that all 'volume' car companies are now finance houses that chuck a nice car in to attract customers.
 
Kia recruited the head of design from Audi a few years ago. IIRC he is now CEO of Kia.
Oh yeah, the KIA Optima. A Passatt/A4 by checkbox. Except actually handling, performing, or driving like the thing it so purports to equate with.

Yet I have a eNiro which has the much same interior and couldn't be more different in every respect.

PS. If I had the money and wasn't committed to electric driving I would happily have a decent E39 on the drive.
 
BMW X6. Vile ostentatious bling. I'd need blacked out windows so that nobody I knew recognised me in it.
Agreed, the X6 is probably one of the ugliest cars on the road. Fortunately there aren’t many of them around. Most of the BMW SUV’s are not great to look at, but neither are the Audi equivalents.
 
The problem I have with BMW is that the high point in their design aesthetics was probably the 2002, so that's give or take 60 years ago.
 
Today you can't get a 6 cylinder engine unless you get one of the big, 400+ HP turbo mode ls. Almost impossible to get a simple manual gearbox. But I would just like 3 litres, RWD, 6 cylinders, manual gearbox, no turbo. Not available.
The modern turbo petrol engine is a wonderful thing. Pancake flat torque just off idle until almost redline and near enough instant throttle response.

But I agree that an I6 engine and RWD used to be defining characteristics of BMWs.

I think I will be keeping my 2013 335i Touring with 6MT box for as long as it remains serviceable.
 
I find it hard to imagine how the producer of some of the most breathlessly elegant designs ever could fall quite so low:

BMW-E9-3.0-CSi-HR-Fahrwerk-BBS-RS-Staggered-1.jpg

Except this one has been destroyed with big and very uggly 17" + wheels. Should be the original 14" ones.

Yes. contemporay car design is AWFUL. And I'm far from sure it has much to do with the China market, it's just something to expect in our post modern world.
 


advertisement


Back
Top