Bangle Quits BMW and Auto Industry Altogether

http://www.worldcarfans.com/9090203.008/bangle-quits-bmw-and-auto-industry-altogether

Christopher Bangle, legendary head of BMW Group design, will hand the reigns over to Adrian van Hooydonk

by Alex Ricciuti
February 3, 2009 4:11 PM


Here is some news that will be a shocker to the industry: Christopher Bangle has quit as head of design for BMW Group and plans to leave the auto industry altogether.

BMW has announced the news in a press release. Bangle says he will be pursuing other design challenges beyond automobiles.

Bangle's influence on BMW's recent history and his contributions to the premium car maker's success are difficult to overstate. Bangle, only 52, is a legend in automotive design and has been head of BMW Design Development since 1992.

He headed the design evolution of the BMW 3, 5 and 7 series from the 1990s into the 2000s, an era of commercial and critical success for those models.

Bangle's team also designed all the new models introduced under his tenure - which include the Z3, Z4, Z8, X5, X6, the 6 series and the 1 series. Bangle was also instrumental in creating the MINI, a car that BMW revamped and launched as a new brand. MINI has also been a success for the Bavaria automaker.

Bangle did take some heat from critics for what was seen as a poor re-design of the 7 series back in 2002 but his achievements have far outweighed any missteps.

Adrian van Hooydonk, 44, currently the head of design at BMW Automobile, will take Bangle's place as Director of BMW Group Design. He has worked closely alongside Bangle for 17 years.

 

Good riddance - overrated IMHO. Some of the early 90's stuff (which presumably he influenced) was fanatastic, but BMW design has degraded over the years. I can't stand some of the later work - it's weird and there are odd lines (Z4 comes to mind - horrid)...

 

Maybe he can join up with Bruce Springsteen and the E-street band.

If not that, perhaps Celtic Woman as Lord of the Dance?

He will not be missed.

However, how this made it into "racing" is beyond my comprehension.

 

Apparently the "inside story" is that the last straw was Hyundai's North America Car of the year award for the Genesis Sedan. Overheard at BMW's HQ b/w Chairman DR NORBERT REITHOFER & CHRIS BANGLE:

NR: "Hyundai?!!! WTF Chris?!! You cant even beat a 2 bit Korean car maker?! Doesnt that thing run on rice?!!"
CB: "Well Hyundai has come a long way & contrary to popular belief they now run on gas boss."
NR: "Gas?"
CB: "I mean petrol. And there's a lot of our design cues in the Genesis. The trunk for instance. It's clearly our design."
NR: "There you go again w/ the trunk thing. Chris I must admit, I don't like big butts and I'm not gonna lie. I can't deny."
CB: "But Boss, you drive a 7?!"
NR: "Of course I do, I HAVE TO. I'm the chairman of BMW. I cant exactly drive a Mercedes can I?!!! But I do like that that S class. Why can't you design a car like that?!"
CB: "The new S class also has some of our design."
NR: "Can we sue those guys for stealing our design?"
CB: "We'll not really."
NR: "Why not?!"
CB: "Well, you know the folding hardtop on the 3 convertible?"
NR: "Yeah. What's that got to do anything?"
CB: "We stole it from Mercedes' SL Convertible."
NR: " "
CB: " Also our F1 car. We stole everything from Ferrari and planted the evidence at Mercedes. We had to. F1 is way to expensive. We had to cut cost and save money."
NR: " "
CB: "The engines too."
NR: "What engines? We have excellent engines. Our M engines are award winning."
CB: "Well, ... We tell the public that the engines in the M3 & M5 are derived for "our" F1 cars."
NR: "So they are really Ferrari engines?"
CB: "Not exactly. We did redesign the engine covers to read "M" on them."
NR: "Chris, I don't know what to do. It's going to cost us millions to undo everything. I'm going to have to tell the board and shareholders. Our stock will crash."
CB: "Just blame it on the Economy and the Financial crisis."
NR: " "
CB: "Oh BTW, remember the billions of Euros of reserve cash that our Treasury had? I had them invest it with Bernie Madoff."
NR: "FU Chris and get your "flaming" a $$ out of here! Oh and BTW my other car is a GT-R!!!"
CB: "Mine too!!!"

 

I think he singlehandedly converted me to being an Audi buyer.

Actually, I really liked the Z3 and Z8. I was surprised to see those listed here. But overall I think BMW has fallen well behind Merc and Audi in terms of design. My 2002 BMW e46 coupe was a stunning car; the new one looks heavy and clumsy. The 7 was a horror; the 5 looks heavy and clumsy as well, despite being a good car underneath. The 6 looks obese -- look at it next to a Porsche 997 and you would guess the cars are about 1000 lbs apart.

The MINI is a winner, but that was an update on an icon.

I'm very underwhelmed with Bangle's work for BMW. I wish him well with whatever comes next, and hopefully BMW can redesign its line now.

 

Z3 and 8 were awesome. the 8 was a tribute to the 507.
I think the 6 is one of the ugliest cars around. I recall an auto reviewer, perhaps Clarkson, saying something like "...& before leaving the factory, every 6series is backed into a wall for good measure." The car is unecessarily big. Its been said that Bangle has been less unfluential w/ in the co. I will, however, give him credit for his "bold" designs.
I love my e39 m5.

 

Don't let the door knob hit ya on the way out!
Maybe now BMW will get back to looking like something special that it once was. I have an E46 M3 and think IMO it is the last of the good looking 3's. Not sure what his input was on that design but he lost it after that with the whole range.
Again, just an opinion so no flame throwers please.

 

Last gen. 5-series looks ultra-modern today as it did day one. If that isn't good design I don't know what is. Look at Audi A6 and Merc E-class, they are outright boring compared to it.

Other cars of the BMW range are fugly, except for the 6.