Should have known that with Bangle 'Entwicklung' would stop and 'F...' would start.

[hayabusa55]

From Motor Trend:
"BMW is abandoning its long-running "E" codenames in favor of a new "F" series. The next generation 7 Series, which features radically different sheetmetal from the current car and is due 2009, will be called F01. The long-wheelbase version will be called F01, and the next 5 series is already down as the F10."

[drummersam65]

thats kinda sad! i am going to miss the "e". Anything with an F infront of it makes it sound like you are talking about a Ford Truck or a tornado! lol

[Tutankhamon]

damnit! :banghead:

[bimmerchop]

Replacing the E with an F just doesn't feel right :(

[hayabusa55]

:dunno: Wonder what the F stands for anyway... :dunno:

[TravsM3]

:dunno: Wonder what the F stands for anyway... :dunno:
f = fawking retarded

[Hrvat]

yeah, I was gonna post a thread asking what happens when BMW reaches 99 (since current 3 series is E90)

[Griff330]

None of my friends has any idea what I'm talking about when I call my car an E46 so what difference will this make to the average Joe?

[hayabusa55]

yeah, I was gonna post a thread asking what happens when BMW reaches 99 (since current 3 series is E90)

Oh, yeah... I forgot.
http://www.bmwarchiv.de/model/model_e99.jpg

None of my friends has any idea what I'm talking about when I call my car an E46 so what difference will this make to the average Joe?

Average Joe doesn't care about a lot of things.

[ikeupinya]

BMW is making fighter jets now? :hmm:

[enigmAudi]

Looks like a civic si :thumbdwn:

[russ330]

Weird. Seems like a rather useless change. :dunno: I too wonder what the "F" stands for, perhaps if I knew what it meant it'd make sense.

[Hrvat]

Fruit
Fa6
Fairy
Flameboy
Fifi

As Chris Bangle being one of those?

[dave12345]

ur talking about like E46 right it will be F46 or whatever new number he comes up with?

[Alan]

I think the letter "F" is appropriate for Chirs Bangle's new designs.

[Griff330]

:dunno: Wonder what the F stands for anyway... :dunno:

'F'entwicklung?

[///MLM]

Boo :thumbdwn: But I guess they kind of had no choice since the E90 is the last one I guess for E...

[hayabusa55]

I think the letter "F" is appropriate for Chirs Bangle's new designs.

I wonder if this is his too.
http://media.autobild.de/bild/8/7c8f19911f05e2307a2182fc579eadc8_1.jpghttp://media.autobild.de/bild/D/3b30fc8ccdafdfa8a538c7f4ef8d38cd_1.jpg

[iastute]

'F'entwicklung?

:rofl:

[akhbhaat]

You people are actually making something out of a letter change associated with chassis codes?

****ing pathetic. :rolleyes:

By the way - none of the existing BMW designs are Bangle's work. He oversaw their creation, but did not pen them himself. Nothing more, nothing less. The BMW board of directors has the final say in all matters.

[imolazhp_ci]

yeah...exactly. people say bangle sucks but his designs, or designs made with him at his position, turned BMW into the best selling luxury brand in the world... and for the first time over taking mercedes. this seven series is the highest selling seven series ever, approacing 3 series sales numbers.

[hayabusa55]

Bangle IS the chief of design and he DOES exemplifiy the direction of design that BMW is currently on. Instead of designing cars that are pleasing to the eye as well as our other senses, BMW and Bangle have to resort to explanations in order to get us to realize that the designs are good. :wtf:

These are Bangle's explanations of the recent BMW designs.
1. Car design has closed the gap on architecture. Bauhaus modernism arrived in the 1920s, when cars were still in a near-baroque phase. Autos didn't get Bauhausy until the 50s. Bangle proudly noted that it took only six years for him to echo the complex curves of Frank Gehry's Bilbao museum in the BMW Z4 sports car.

2. Car design is technologically driven--specifically by the tooling. It's all about "what kind of shapes you can get out of tools." At the moment, the big tool is "multiple axis surfacing," which allowed BMW to create its previously "impossible" convex and concave steel panels." Bangle was especially proud of the "digital" technology behind the wrinkles in a new BMW's hood.

3. Car design, and maybe appreciation of car design, is an elite occupation. Bangle noted that anyone with a computer and Photoshop could now alter BMW's designs.** But just because you can buy a cheap machine and bake bread at home "doesn't make you a master baker." This was accompanied by lots of references to "professionalism," "skill level," the ability to understand visual grammar and reach the "highest audience."

4. We should see beyond the single car and see how each product fits into the broad sweep of aesth etic progress. Bangle ridiculed designers who just come up with something they think is "cool." Instead each design has a place in the "biggest single aesthetic undertaking in human history."

To which kf responds:

1. Why do cars have to follow buildings? Bangle didn't seem like a cantankerous visionary as much as an insecure follower. Why be so proud that you managed to ape Bilbao in only 6 years? (Later, in the Q &A, Bangle lamented that his team had difficulty designing a cell phone antennae for BMW because there were no "precedents" to follow from racing cars. Why does he need "precedents"?). You'd think auto design might lead architecture rather than the other way around, cars being a fresher development, in the broad sweep of things, than buildings.

2. Tools are tools: Just because you can make new shapes doesn't mean that they will always be appealing. Bangle interspersed his slide show with photos of beautiful and fashionable women, mainly Audrey Hepburn, which had the effect of subtly subverting his pitch. The design of women, after all, hasn't changed all that much over centuries. Yet they still retain their brand appeal! That's because the attraction is built into our genes. Maybe there are other aesthetic parameters in our genes--a preference for smooth and symmetrical shapes over pockmarked and asymmetrical shapes, for example. (In the environment of our evolution, pockmarks=disease, right?) Hence the smooth, voluptuous Pontiac Solstice. Bangle seems eager to let changes in tooling technology lead him to rapidly create clever shapes that our nimble brains may appreciate on an intellectual level but that our relatively unchanging genes don't let us appreciate on an emotional level. Hence the BMW 3 series.

3. Cool is cool. Deskwork doesn't often produce beauty: Would you rather buy a design from a) sophisticated scholars who urge you to see how it fits into the broad history of aesthetics or b) blindered adolescents who say, "Hey, this is cool"? I'll take (b). It's mighty convenient for an executive who designs ugly cars to ask us to look at them in their grand intellectual context. ... And is aesthetic evolution the result of bold moves by self-conscious theorists like Bangle or the competition of lots of little, "cool" designs by people who quite unaware of how their work compared with that of Archimedes and Vermeer? I'd say the latter, which would make aesthetic evolution more analogous to actual, un-self-conscious Darwinian evolution.

4. Survival of the coolest! In this context, Bangle's loud professionalism seems more like the brittle defense of a man who doesn't want to be judged "fit" or "unfit" in a chaotic battle for popular and artistic survival--someone who'd rather be declared an aesthetic visionary mainly because he's got the job of chief of design for BMW--and who cares what you think anyway?
That's from slate, and it illustrates some nice points.

[Alan]

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91/Eyesofsilver/bangle.jpg

[Cuore_alfa]

ABCDEFG

[TitanSilber ZHP]

ABCDEFG

So BMW ran through A B C and D chassis codes before the "E"?

[hayabusa55]

So BMW ran through A B C and D chassis codes before the "E"?

No, he's just trying to tell us he knows the order of the first seven letters of the alphabet. 'E' stood for Entwicklung or Entwicklungsmodell (I think the second one). Entwicklung = development.

[hayabusa55]

Moved? Great, now this will get no response at all. :(

[rana]

you guys are so F'ing retarted...

I think its good they are changing the letter...marks the start of a new era in my opinnion...

[hayabusa55]

you guys are so F'ing retarted...

I think its good they are changing the letter...marks the start of a new era in my opinnion...

Retarted? :slap: Opinnion? :slap: Oh, and while I'm at it: it's. :slap:

Not everyone is protesting the change. I liked the E** part because at least it meant something, while it's hard to think what F could stand for. And what's wrong with this era?

[BMWMensch]

F = Fortschritt?

Progress? just a guess here.

[platinumsc]

:dunno: Wonder what the F stands for anyway... :dunno:
What does the E stand for?

[hayabusa55]

Entwicklungmodell = Development model

[Transporter99]

I forsaw Bangle's design's would spawn more boldness out of the other marqee luxury brands, and it has (Mercedes, Audi). Even Lexus' new ES350 for 2007 has some interesting "bangle" touches to the trunk lid and tail lights from a profile, and some E90 3-series looks on the doors inside. Like it or not, BMW's designs are making a statement and selling.

I remember when lots of E36 owners and journalists/fans of E36 hated the E46 design when it launched. I doubt many of us would call the E46 a bad design. Everyone from the previous generation has their opinions. :)

[hayabusa55]

I forsaw Bangle's design's would spawn more boldness out of the other marqee luxury brands, and it has (Mercedes, Audi). Even Lexus' new ES350 for 2007 has some interesting "bangle" touches to the trunk lid and tail lights from a profile, and some E90 3-series looks on the doors inside. Like it or not, BMW's designs are making a statement and selling.

I remember when lots of E36 owners and journalists/fans of E36 hated the E46 design when it launched. I doubt many of us would call the E46 a bad design. Everyone from the previous generation has their opinions. :)

I've heard that a lot, but not all designs need getting used to. Some are just good-looking out of the box, and I thought so of the E46 and the E60 even. Most other car makers usually take less getting used to as well.

[bimmer07]

they could go to triple digits like E110