he new version of the BMW flagship model, the 5-Series, reiterates the styling guidelines promulgated by the brand’s Director of Design, Chris Bangle. Auto & Design tells the story behind the new saloon by means of an interview with Bangle himself, as well as the story of the project’s genesis. “We worked on the design of the surfaces, especially on the sides, to make it look much less weighty than its dimensions would suggest”, Bangle told A&D. “While on the 7-Series the line along the side creates a bulge above the waistline, and a play of reflections that accentuates the car’s volume, on the 5-Series we have made that section concave to create an impression of greater lightness and agility, enhanced by a chiaroscuro effect”.
In A&D’s second article on the 5-Series, Wim Oude Weernink gets Michael Nimic, BMW’s Director of Interior Design, to talk about the conduct of the 5-Series project: “We wanted to develop a more specific design language for each of the brand’s model ranges, while at the same time retaining such classic BMW elements as the kidneys and the so-called Hofmeisterknick C pillar”, explains Nimic.
BMW wanted its new model to be recognisable as a BMW, but at the same time, it did not want a carbon copy and came up with several interesting styling features that set the 5-Series apart from other BMWs. The design team borrowed the horizontal waistline from the 7-Series, but the emphatically shaped door sills from the Z4 roadster, for extra dynamism.
The article continues in Auto & Design no. 141
