You guys make it sound like its all bangel's fault. No guys his designs have to be APPROVED by some huge board. They dont just let him work in a dark room all by himself and churn out hunks of crap. Every single one of the designs is taken to a commitee and is decided on. You know it might not even be bangel's fault! It could just be some corprate bigwigs looking for a scapegoat.

And maybe this will cause all the Bangle designs to be weird BMW collectibles because they'll go back to normal styling...hmmm *idea forms, goes to BMW dealer*

Munich, February 3, 2004 ... The BMW Group has reorganized its development departments as it focuses more strongly on its BMW and MINI brands and Rolls-Royce MC. In the course of this new orientation, Christopher Bangle, Director of BMW Group Design, has also aligned the design area towards the various business areas of the BMW Group. Individual design studios have been set up for BMW and MINI and Rolls-Royce as well as for BMW Motorrad and BMW M. These new studios will now accompany the entire development process for new models from the first sketches to the start of production. They will receive support from cross-brand specialist departments responsible for strategic and technical tasks, for example model technology.

The heads of departments responsible up to now for the design of MINI, Rolls-Royce MC, BMW Motorrad and BMW M will head the respective brand design studios: Gert Volker Hildebrand (MINI), Ian Cameron (Rolls-Royce MC), David Robb (BMW Motorrad) and Ulf Weidhase (BMW M and Individual). A new yet familiar member of the team of Group Design Director Christopher Bangle is Adrian van Hooydonk who will head the BMW automobile brand studio. Until now Van Hooydonk was president of DesignworksUSA, the Californian design studio of the BMW Group.

An overview of the heads of the brand design studios of the BMW Group:

BMW Automobiles
Adrian van Hooydonk, 40, has been a designer at BMW since 1992 and president of DesignworksUSA, the Californian design studio of the BMW Group, since 2001. The Dutch designer developed the exterior design of the current BMW 6 Series and 7 Series among other projects.

BMW Motorrad
David Robb, 48, came to BMW as an exterior designer for automobiles and later headed the exterior design studio. In 1993 he took over as head of BMW Motorrad design.

BMW M and Individual
Ulf Weidhase, 51, came to BMW in 1988 and has headed the design team for BMW M Automobiles and BMW Individual.

MINI
Gert Volker Hildebrand, 50, has headed the MINI design team since 2000. Before this appointment he headed design teams at Volkswagen, Seat and Mitsubishi.

Rolls-Royce Motorcars
Ian Cameron, 53, came to BMW in 1992 as an exterior designer and among other things was project manager for the design of the 3 Series and the current Range Rover. In 1999 he was appointed the head of the newly-created design team of Rolls-Royce Motorcars.

Detroit. In news that shocked absolutely no one, BMW AG promoted Chris Bangle to a new position last week - Director of BMW Group Design - in which he will supervise all of BMW's brands (BMW, BMW M, BMW Motorcycles, Rolls-Royce and Mini). His new position removes him from day-to-day, "hands-on" control of BMW brand design. Adrian van Hooydonk, a 40-year-old who had been head of DesignWorksUSA, BMW's California design studio (and a Bangle disciple), will take over direct control of all of BMW brand design.

If BMW fans are expecting instant improvements or drastic changes - they shouldn't bother. Adrian van Hooydonk was responsible for the look of the current 7 and 5 Series cars, under Bangle's tutelage, and the lead times for any design changes are, of course, notoriously long. Even if the planned "freshening" of the 7 Series (a nonevent by all indications) is due soon, the basics of the shape will remain intact for several years to come.

The real story behind the story is that of BMW's stubborn refusal (until now) to acknowledge that Bangle had become a lightning rod to its loyal customers, to the media and even to some within BMW itself - and had cost the company tons of ill will and a trainload of horrendously bad PR that has damaged the brand over the last 24 months.

Now, we have said repeatedly here at AE that Bangle's task at BMW was probably the most difficult that an automotive designer could face. There's a fine line between design "reach" and a more evolutionary path for automotive design. Evolutionary is what the new C6 Corvette represents (a disappointment to many who were hoping for more of a "new century" look), while the Cadillac look pioneered on the Evoq concept from several years ago represents "reach" in its ideal form - a look that not only repositioned the brand's "presence" on the street, but one that repositioned the Cadillac image for the next decade, at least.

What Bangle attempted to do by "reaching" with BMW's "next" look was an admirable, ballsy move. But taking an iconic automotive brand and moving it forward into the future is a perilous undertaking, at best. Get it right, and you're a hero. Get it wrong, and you're asking for a world of trouble and relentless second-guessing from just about every faction imaginable - customers, dealers, the media, financial analysts and even fellow designers (although most of them, out of professional courtesy, when asked, kept their criticisms to themselves). But when given the opportunity to comment "off the record," most design pros will tell you that Bangle's motivation and direction were spot-on - but that his execution was a flat-out disaster of gigantic proportions.

Needless to say, we feel that Mr. Bangle got it wrong, and he got it wrong in such a big way that it has actually cost the brand dearly. His executional mistakes did nothing less than knock the BMW brand off of its pedestal, and left BMW executives scrambling to deflect questions and comments at media sessions that were supposed to be devoted to talking about the inherent goodness of BMW products. It wasn't just a distraction for the last 24 months - it was the only topic that the mainstream media seemed to regurgitate as if on cue. We even came to expect the word "controversial" and Chris Bangle in the same sentence as a standard lead-in to any story that appeared on BMW. That was more than a distraction; it bordered on image paralysis. And that, combined with BMW engineering's near missionary-like zeal to burden their vehicles with electronic overkill, derailed the brand from its raison d'etre. Instead of giving the driver the ultimate driving experience, BMW's overemphasis on electronic driver aids placed the driver one step removed from the control and "feel" that BMW is famous for.

If anything, this episode should remind everyone in the automobile business of the power that design holds over this industry. On the one hand, great design can move product, create "buzz," and totally rejuvenate and solidify a brand's "street" image. On the other hand, design failures can absolutely decimate a brand and erase years of carefully crafted brand image-making.

BMW created this new executive design position for Chris Bangle for two reasons: 1. It is an elegant way to get him up and out of the line of fire, and 2. It relieves them from the burden of having to admit that the new 7 Series, in particular, was an unmitigated disaster that has cost them money and seriously hurt their brand image.

But did they really learn anything from all of this? I seriously doubt it.

BMW has become such an arrogant company, what with the upcoming canonization of CEO Helmut Panke in a new book (Driven: Inside BMW, The Most Admired Car Company in the World, by USA Today reporter David Kiley), that it not only refuses to admit to its missteps and failures, it is absolutely convinced that they know everything there is to know about who they are, and what they represent in the market. And because of this infallible attitude, they can't see things coming unraveled around them, and they actually believe that nothing is wrong and that their success will go on indefinitely.

I've taken serious umbrage with BMW over the last several weeks for a litany of reasons - starting with Chris Bangle's mangling of their design integrity and the fact that they seem to be hell-bent on making people forget why they should buy a BMW to begin with.

And after the Detroit Auto Show, I said that BMW is on the verge of a long, slow slide into brand oblivion and that if they're not careful, they will be in danger of joining Mercedes-Benz as the poster example of a classic case of brand erosion.

Most of his designs are good. It's just the fact they have nothing to do with BMW that pisses me off. They're not conservative or anything, no hint of "BMW-ness." Anwyays, they can always recover, no worries.