February 20, 2006
Autos on Monday | Design
A Flood of Imitators Flatter a Once-Mocked Rump
By PHIL PATTON

A CIRCLE will be closed next week at the Geneva auto show, when BMW introduces its new Z4 coupe, a production model based on the X coup? design study unveiled in 2001.

The X coup? was the first full statement of a new design language for BMW from Christopher E. Bangle, the company's chief of design. He has completed the restatement of BMW's main model lines ? an array he described as "one sausage, three lengths" when he took over in 1992 ? in that language.

In addition to the redesigns of the 7, 5, and 3 Series cars, Mr. Bangle presided over an expansion that included the introduction of the Z8 sports car; a Z4 roadster; the X3 and X5 sport wagons; the sporty 6 Series; and the subcompact 1 Series (which is not sold in the United States). He also supervised the styling of the Mini Cooper and the Rolls-Royce Phantom at BMW's subsidiaries.

Mr. Bangle is arguably the most influential auto designer of his generation ? and he is not yet 50. He has certainly been the most vilified, inspiring letters of outrage to editors and indignant postings on Web sites.

Much of the controversy springs from a design feature that appeared first on the BMW 7 Series of 2002: a trunk lid that rose above the rear fenders, departing from the single flush surface that is familiar to customers.

In his work, the American-born Mr. Bangle has tried to convey that a car's shape can be expressive as well as functional. To relieve the bulk and express the dynamism of the previously stolid 7 Series, he sculptured the sides, creased the hood and separated the rear deck from the fenders, producing a look widely mocked as the "Bangle butt."

Critics focused on what seemed an ungainly afterthought, a committee-ordered addition. But ? wonder of wonders ? customers were less offended than the press. That most-derided feature is today one of the most imitated. Many Korean and Japanese models now feature similar rear ends. The 2007 Toyota Camry is one; even Mercedes-Benz, BMW's archrival, seems to have taken a page from Mr. Bangle's sketchpad for its new S-Class flagship.

That rear end will forever serve as shorthand for Mr. Bangle's career. He will not easily escape association with it, in the same way that no matter how trim she might become, Kirstie Alley will always be remembered for her stint in "Fat Actress."

Implicitly acknowledging the criticism, BMW changed the rear end of the 2006 7 Series slightly, adding a cosmetic chrome strip that made the trunk lid seem lower.

The real signature of the cars was not their end but their edge. Mr. Bangle brought a visible tension to the shapes of the cars. Phrases like "flame surfacing" and "sexy math" were floated to describe the designs, but never quite stuck as names for the Bangle look.

In the pre-Bangle era, the bodies not only of BMW's but of most German cars visibly asserted their solidity. They were shaped to suggest solid blocks milled to form, symbols of quality and durability.

This, Mr. Bangle argues, was the legacy of the Bauhaus movement and its embrace of unornamented geometry. "With the X coup?," Mr. Bangle said, "we moved beyond that."

Its sharp-edged lines, dips and swoops radiated agility instead of solidity. In creasing and folding the metal, Mr. Bangle acknowledges that the car is after all sheet metal, not a solid block. He restored the edge to bodies ? and the edginess to design.

The change, Mr. Bangle says, comes from exploiting the capabilities of new kinds of tools. At the Los Angeles auto show last month he said that only two things matter in auto design: "How they are made and what they mean to people."

Mr. Bangle focuses on the tools of design and production. His innovations derive from computer-controlled machinery whose arrival, he says, signals a shift as fundamental as the one from wooden coaches to stamped steel bodies. In contrast with traditional methods, the new tools make possible more complex shapes ? and allow the expression of more complex emotions.

In his frequent speeches at auto shows and design conferences, Mr. Bangle shows images of Frank Gehry buildings and Nokia cellphones alongside those of BMW cars. In these presentations, his frame of reference ranges from the sculpture of Umberto Boccioni to the nose of Audrey Hepburn. He compares the pace of changes ? the intermittent revolutions in auto design ? to the "punctuated equilibrium" concept of evolution popularized by Stephen Jay Gould, the late Harvard paleontologist.

"We have been one of the few trying to move this industry out of the doldrums of simple branding and engineering," Mr. Bangle said. BMW is leading, he boasts; competitors focus so much on the rear because they are looking at it from behind.

Mr. Bangle has been critical of retro styles. This has set him in opposition to designers like J Mays, vice president of design at Ford, who has been circumspect in speaking to American journalists about Mr. Bangle but was more forthright in a recent interview with a German magazine, Auto Motor und Sport.

"There's no doubt Chris Bangle has had an influence," Mr. Mays said.

But, he added, "What I see at the moment does not please me. I don't like the 7, and there is not much at BMW that looks German to me. Germans were always famous for the most highly developed cars in the world, but the current design does not communicate that."

The production coupe to be shown in Geneva is remarkably close to the original X coup? concept, though it does not have the asymmetrical doors that shocked many five years ago.

Some of the most vocal Bangle critics seem to have softened their tone, even the hard-core enthusiasts. Mr. Bangle, never overly modest, is now more muted. He is doing all he can not to claim victory too loudly.

* Copyright 2006The New York Times Company