Create the style in a substantially free manner, proportion and harmony of masses the objective. And then shape the package within those masses without deforming them, without the usual “lift it here”, “stretch it there”.
It sounds like a dream. In an era when design finds itself faced with the bottom line right from the start of the project, with ever more unyielding interior and mechanical packages, the BMW Z07 has apparently adopted a more liberal process, the opposite, you might say, of the customary.
And to the objection, “Of course, but it’s the freedom of a show car”, the German company responds by declaring that the thoroughbred roadster presented in a world first at the Tokyo show could be in production by the year 2000. Basically it is backed up by technical feasibility and an industrial plan that apparently envisage the production of 3,000 cars a year at a hypothetical price of some 200,000 DM.
“We’ve broken a few rules,” confirms Christopher E. Bangle, chief of BMW design, “beginning with a design study that excited the senior management so much they wanted it to be developed as faithfully as possible – constraining the mechanicals to the shape and not the other way around, as usually happens.” The initial idea dates from the first sketches of 1994 and deliberately attempts a reinterpretation of the shape of the 507, the rarely seen roadster built in just a few examples between 1956 and 1959.
The nostalgic effect is powerful, but successfully avoids the descent into syrupy retro and, instead, revitalises exciting shapes and themes. And it is precisely that sense of proportion, of balanced masses from front end to cabin section and rear, that merits the loudest applause for the Z07.
The article continues in Auto & Design no. 107
