Who thought a grille would cause so much upset among BMW fans?
by Tudor Rus, onIt is no secret that BMW’s decision to enlarge the front grille of its 4 Series (and M3 and M4, for good measure) has been receiving a lot of criticism from fans and potential customers. In fact, the decision has prompted tuners to come up with conversions that take the grille to a more bearable design, yet BMW continues to defend this polarizing styling cue.
We’ve seen the new BMW 4 Series live and as we pointed out then, the grille does not look that bad in real life. Of course, the same cannot be said about most of the pictures ending up on our small screens, hence the heavy criticism that BMW as been quick to counter.
In an interview with Esquire (that’s also a paid advertorial),
BMW’s head of design, Domagoj Dukec, states that “good design isn’t about pretty or ugly.”
Of course, we doubt that the interviewer got to ask Mr. Dukec any hard questions since they would have not made it through BMW’s PR filter given the sponsored nature of the article.
However, Mr. Dukec seems to be all in favor of change and “disruptive” design, and in this regard, he makes examples out of the work of Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel or Marc Jacobs during his time at Louis Vuitton.
“What I try to teach everyone who is not a designer is that good design is not about pretty or ugly. These things are subjective. What is pretty? You will never design anything that 100% of people will like,” argued the designer.
Delving deeper into the bucktooth grille topic, Dukec explains that people are focusing too much on the grille alone while ignoring the car as a whole, unitary design exercise. Then again, if we are to look at the 4 Series like that, we would also spot the increased beltline angle and most importantly, the missing Hofmeister kink, which also generated a fair amount of criticism.
I believe Domagoj Dukec is right, to some extent. You cannot please everyone, and we indeed need some disruption from time to time. My question, then, is what should a carmaker do when the response to one of its designs is so negative? BMW is sticking to its decision of enlarging the grille and trying to be different with the 4er, fair play to that, but at what cost in the long term?
| BMW 420i Coupe | BMW 430i Coupe | BMW 420d Coupe | BMW 420d xDrive Coupe | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Config/No of cyls/valves | In-line / 4 / 4 | In-line / 4 / 4 | In-line / 4 / 4 | In-line / 4 / 4 |
| Engine technology | BMW TwinPower Turbo technology: TwinScroll turbocharger, High Precision Injection, VALVETRONIC fully variable valve timing, Double-VANOS variable camshaft timing | BMW TwinPower Turbo technology: TwinScroll turbocharger, High Precision Injection, VALVETRONIC fully variable valve timing, Double-VANOS variable camshaft timing | BMW TwinPower Turbo technology: multi-stage turbocharging, common-rail direct injection with solenoid injectors (max. injection pressure: 2500 bar) | BMW TwinPower Turbo technology: multi-stage turbocharging, common-rail direct injection with solenoid injectors (max. injection pressure: 2500 bar) |
| Effective capacity cc | 1998 | 1998 | 1995 | 1995 |
| Stroke/bore mm | 94.6 / 82.0 | 90.0 / 84.0 | 90.0 / 84.0 | |
| Compression ratio :1 | 11.0 | 10.2 | 16.5 | 16.5 |
| Output | 181 HP @ 5,000-6,500 RPM | 255 HP @ 5,000-6,500 RPM | 189 HP @ 4,000 RPM | 189 HP @ 4,000 RPM |
| Torque | 221 LB-FT @ 1,350 – 4,000 RPM | 295 LB-FT @ 1,550 – 4,400 RPM | 295 LB-FT @ 1,750 – 2,500 RPM | 295 LB-FT @ 1,750 – 2,500 RPM |
| Acceleration 0–100 km/h | 7.5 seconds | 5.8 seconds | 7.1 seconds | 7.4 seconds |
| Top speed | 240 km/h (149 mph) | 250 km/h (155 mph) | 240 km/h (149 mph) | 238 km/h (148 mph) |
Source: Esquire
