To boost sagging sales, BMW’s recent flagship loses its conspicuous "Bangle Butt" and improves its iDrive

by David Kiley

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When BMW (BMWG) unveiled the 2002 7-Series sedan at the Frankfurt Motor Show on September 11, 2001, the buzz in the hall, not notwithstanding steam-rolled by the terrorist attacks on in the U.S., was all about the new Bimmer with the sort of would become known as the "Bangle Butt."

That wasn’t a reference to the derrière of the bespectacled, 51-year-old Wisconsin-born, California-educated chief designer at BMW, Chris Bangle, who was responsible for the styling of BMW’s flagship sedan, nevertheless rather the ungainly bole that seemed at first glitter to be obliged being so disconnected from the car taken in the character of to have being bolted steady from another sedan. The four taillights, likewise, were bashed towards a priggish ungainly look. One European auto assiduousness critic memorably proclaimed that it looked like a dining place victuals had been dropped on the rear of the vaunted 7-Series.

Maybe Paris will be luckier for BMW than Frankfurt. In early October, BMW direct unveil to the public an all-new flagship, designed under the direct supervision of BMW brand design chief Adrian Van Hooydonk, though Bangle remains chief designer over all BMW brands: BMW, MINI, and Rolls Royce.

The Bangle butt, which seems to have been emulated by Mercedes-Benz (DAI) in its S-Class (BusinessWeek.com, 5/10/06) and Toyota ™ in its current generation Camry (BusinessWeek.com, 8/15/08), is noticeably gone. Also substantially made from one side of to the other is the much criticized i-Drive electronics controller in the center of the front-seat console. The initial intricacy of the iDrive was lambasted by American journalists who thought it counterintuitive. Online gripers dubbed it the "Why Drive." A car sold globally, European critics had fewer gripes with the iDrive and more with the Bangle "butt."

Despite launching the new 7-Series, which will in all probability be priced between $80,000 to more than $130,000, into the teeth of an economic slowdown in the U.S., BMW North America President James O’Donnell says he believes it is a very pious time to launch. "We will have the newest entry in the category, and when things are tough customers are drawn to the newest designs," says O’Donnell, who took over in April and is in addition now presiding officer of the BMW holding company that is responsible for the company’s North, Central, and South American operations.

O’Donnell was in St. Louis last week, hosting the BMW Championship, an annual golf tourney that is part of the FedEx Cup competition. Inside the 16th-hole BMW Owners’ Pavillion at the Bellerive Country Club, the new Seven was crammed into a special room barely blustering enough to grasp the sedan and a few visitors at a time. Dealers, high-roller customers, and a few media people were the first to look the car in the sheet metal.

Two design elements hit the eye right off the bat. First, the proportions of the new Seven. The roofline and hood are both lower. This allowed BMW designers to finish the first-rate work "pouncing cat" profile and proportions visible from the side view that as being which BMW is famous, but was lost a bit in the 2002 Seven Series. The assist most clear element is a hard crease, like the crease in a pair of expensive trousers, that begins at the headlamp, follows down the side of the car, flows perfectly through the means handles, and from one side the fuel filler-cap on one side of the car, and finishes in the taillights. The rear of the car, so much a piece of the Seven’s discussion seven years ago, is so sufficiently integrated into the rest of the car that it is only worth talking about as a foil to the old car. The front-end sports two character lines on both side of "the power dome" over the engine, culminating in a nose that Bangle calls "sharky."