Latest news with #ChrisBangle
Miami Herald
12-06-2025
- Automotive
- Miami Herald
Tomorrow's BMW 3 Series Will Make Today's M3 Sweat
An electric incarnation of the next BMW M3 was recently seen lapping Germany's Nürburgring, replete with the next-gen styling that was previewed by concepts like the i Vision Dee and Vision Neue Klasse. Now, it's the turn of the hottest non-M 3er to get a workout around the Green Hell, and it's going to bring with it more than just a fresh face as it chases after AMG C43s and Audi S5s. According to our spies - and common sense - BMW will be pushing the highly capable B58 turbocharged straight-six engine further with the next M340i, which, like other recent non-M updates, will include a new name: M350. Say goodbye to the 'i' suffix - it was confusing buyers who thought these cars might be electric, but that's inevitable when your naming strategy is confined to 10 digits and 26 letters, most of which are unused... The latest version of the M340i currently generates a peak of 386 horsepower - up from the previous limit of 382 hp, but as the JDM-spec Toyota GR Supra Final Edition proves, BMW's six-cylinder can handle much more. In that application, it delivers up to 429 hp, but our spies say to expect only around 400 in the M350. With a production commencement date expected to be around November next year, and any future M3 likely to deliver close to 600 hp, BMW could either choose to launch the M350 with as much as Toyota has extracted, or it could play the game the same way as it has with this G20 generation: start small and deliver more later. With emissions legislation varying on either side of the Atlantic and across the U.S., saving some performance could be prudent - even though hybridization is inevitable. For the 3 Series, the reconstructive surgery at the front will make the biggest impact, with the iconic kidney grille design being reinvented once more to shroud the headlights. It's bold, but elegant, and at the rear, we expect BMW to go with a classic rectangular light bar, which hasn't been so simple since the E30. And in the middle, a Hofmeister kink of sorts will continue at the C-pillar. Inside, BMW Panoramic Vision will take the tech up a notch and the physical switchgear down one or two, but the engineers won't let us close enough to see the cabin yet, so we'll have to wait a little while to see just how much changes, from the dashboard to the seats. Ever since the Chris Bangle 'flame surfacing' era, BMW has leaned further and further into grabbing attention by mixing traditional styling tropes with, shall we say, 'adventurous' modernism. Yet, no matter how far BMW pushes into the unknown, after a few years or less, the styling tends to grow on the average person - at least when it comes to sedans. For this new era, BMW will advance the design even more intentionally than the jump from the F- to G-Series; the company's presentations on styling have always made the point that the Neue Klasse vehicles being introduced from the second half of the decade will look like they "skipped a generation." But this time, we doubt there will be as much controversy. Not only do the concepts mentioned at the outset look well-proportioned, but despite what BMW says, the most recent M5 has already begun to take on the straight, sharp lines of those design studies, while taller vehicles like the X1 and X3 have similarly begun to look like the Vision Neue Klasse X SUV concept, helping all who see them mentally bridge the gap between current and future cars. That means the acclimatization period for future designs won't be long. And neither will the wait; with production supposedly commencing late 2026, prototypes will shed more camouflage through the year as production lighting and wheels are fitted, and we should start seeing teaser campaigns late this year or early next. Copyright 2025 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Auto Car
16-05-2025
- Automotive
- Auto Car
Bangle design, Integrale engines with a Pininfarina interior - from £5000
Proportions more arresting than elegant. Superfluous, slash-like indentations above the wheel housings. Double-blistered headlamp covers, deep-recessed taillights, an aluminium flip-top fuel filler, an aluminium key-fob and a bold repeat of the car's exterior colour arcing across the dashboard. This was the Fiat Coupé, a car unexpectedly signaling that its maker was ready to build sports cars again, and a car signaling the arrival of one Chris Bangle, a designer who would soon stir up the car industry like few designers before him. This car was a surprise not just for its shape, but because Fiat had previously said that it would no longer make pure sports cars, despite a glorious run in the 1960s that included the pretty 850 Coupé and Spider, the 124 Spider, the 124 and 128 Coupés, the Dino Coupé and the exquisite Fiat Dino Spider. That was before Paolo Cantarella arrived to take charge of Fiat Auto in 1989. Cantarella was a businessman who had previously managed the Fiat Group's industrial robot division Comau, but he was also a car enthusiast, and acutely aware of the Italian car industry's past successes Like any CEO, his overriding mission was to keep the Fiat Auto motor running sweetly, and while Puntos and Pandas sold by the trainload, the bigger Tipos and Cromas were more of a struggle. The Fiat brand needed some burnishing and, if the numbers could be made to work, this new coupé could help. Work began around 1991 at both Fiat Centro Stile and Pininfarina, the pair producing quite different proposals. Pininfarina's was crisp, subtle, well-proportioned, elegant and conventional. Fiat's in-house suggestion bordered on the outlandish, its wheel arches capped with angled elliptical blisters in black, a crease bisecting the upper third of its doors at exactly the same angle. Its tail was short, its boot lid no more than a modest capping. It wasn't beautiful but it was daring, original and fresh. Fiat bravely went with this proposal rather than Pininfarina's, and while the finished article grew a longer and appealingly pert tail, the spirit of Bangle's startling design survived largely intact. Pininfarina's interior suggestion featuring a swathe of body colour paneling across dashboard and doors easily won the interior competition, the coachbuilder also winning the manufacturing contract.
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
You Might Hate The BMW iX's Looks, But It Has The Highest Owner Satisfaction Of Any EV
Like many people with eyes, I am a BMW iX hater. It isn't because I'm still holding a grudge over BMW's decision to put Chris Bangle in charge of design, either. I am an evolved hater who thinks the design is incoherent and bland in a way you don't get with the XM. Everything about the XM's styling looks intentional. You might not like what they did, but you can't deny they did something. The iX's styling, however, doesn't do anything. So it brings me absolutely no pleasure to report that the EV with the highest owner satisfaction score in the latest JD Power survey is none other than the BMW iX. OK, it actually does bring me a little pleasure because I'm also evolved enough to still be able to find joy in how mad people get about stuff like this. Sure, it's a JD Power survey, and those aren't always the most reliable, but it's still just a survey. It'll be OK. We're also talking about owner satisfaction here, which means styling isn't the top concern. If they already paid money for it, clearly, they were fine with the design. Plus, in addition to BMW really upping its reliability in recent years, the also-electric BMW i4 has been almost universally praised. So can you really be surprised people who bought the iX end up really liking it? Read more: ChatGPT, Vinfast, And Awesome Honda Concepts: The Biggest Car News To Come Out Of CES Speaking of the BMW i4, would you like to guess which EV had the second-highest owner satisfaction score, both in the luxury category, as well as overall? Yep, it was the i4. Its score of 783 was also much closer to the first-place iX's 790 than it was to the third-place Rivian R1S and its score of 770. What can I say? BMW's figured out how to build EVs that people really like. As far as mainstream EVs go, the also-controversially styled Hyundai Ioniq 6 took the top spot with a score of 751. It was followed by the Kia EV6 at 743, while the third-place Chevrolet Equinox EV came in with a 737. Does that mean you should buy one of the EVs that made the list if there's something you really don't like about them? Honestly, probably not. If the car doesn't offer what you're looking for, that isn't going to change just because the people who liked it enough to buy it continued to like it after driving it for a while. Then again, if we're just talking about styling, the answer could be a maybe. A car's looks tend to grow on you over time, and it's entirely possible you'll fall in love if you can at least tolerate the design. I'm not confident I could get there with the iX, but since I can't afford one, that will have to remain a hypothetical until depreciation hits. If you haven't heard of JD Power's U.S. Electric Vehicle Experience Ownership Survey, that's probably because it was only introduced five years ago. And while the study does separate the results into luxury and mainstream EVs, owners are asked to judge their cars based on the same criteria regardless of which category they fall into. Those categories include: Accuracy of stated battery range Availability of public charging stations Battery range Cost of ownership Driving enjoyment Ease of charging at home Interior and exterior styling Safety and technology features Service experience Vehicle quality and reliability For this year's study, J.D. Power surveyed 6,164 EV and PHEV owners from August through December 2024 and focused specifically on 2024 and 2025 model-year vehicles. That means the 2026 model-year refresh that definitely helped the iX's styling wasn't included in the results. Who knows? Maybe next year, it'll score even higher. Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
