What could have been.

"thegregorius" (thegregorius) 05/22/2015 at 18:40 • Filed to: BMW

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One of these cars was designed by a professional automotive designer with years of training and an eye for aesthetics. The other car was designed by a bored and lazy physicist with a freeware image editing tool after a couple of glasses of Campari.

Guess which one is which.

Alfalfa Romeo > thegregorius 05/22/2015 at 18:44

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Still a little weird in some spots, but it’s amazing what a difference the grill makes.

thegregorius > Alfalfa Romeo 05/22/2015 at 18:46

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That’s why I threw in ‘lazy’ in there, I couldn’t be bothered to do something about the weird creases and vents and folds in the front.

Blunion05 drives a pink S2000 (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST) > thegregorius 05/22/2015 at 18:54

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So comes an end to the kidney grille era.

In comes the gorilla nose.

BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast. > thegregorius 05/22/2015 at 19:22

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So much potential missed.

This idea has been done, including this E63-based concept rendering of the RZ-M6.

This could have been done to great effect.

This paint effect could also have been done, and wrapped from the front fenders over the hood with the bodywork wrap-over theme...

Kind of a shame, really. The E9 and E24 were gorgeous with a shark-nose... like that RZ-M6 concept shows could be brought back. Even the i8 attempts to do that a little bit, with it’s wider grilles and non-circular headlights.

The E63 6-coupe is really more timeless than it was initially given credit for. The headlights and kidney grilles were a bit of a let down on the front, and the F12 headlights and grilles are better but the rest of the stock-specification car is softer.

Kind of makes me wonder what the resale value is on an E63 645Ci V8 car is... and if it possibly came with a manual gearbox and M-sport upgrades to look a bit more like M6...

I SO BADLY wish that the new 2-coupe had a shark-nose and the E63’s sharp roofline and side window graphic... with a short-deck lift back hatch that is a bit wasted on X6.

The trunk lid opening is useless on a car that small, even with the trunk floor space and rear seats folded down. The opening is still too small to be useful for that space. The car’s short length makes the roofline look bulbous.

Drawing the roofline back (and sacrificing rear seat headroom, which is unlikely to matter much anyway) like the E63’s profile, but with a shorter rear overhang would help M235i’s lines considerably, as well as being more practical having the hatch hinged from the roof. The M235i’s front overhang is already short, so an E9/E24 shark nose look (like RZ-M6 rendering above) would be cool. I wouldn’t argue with it having round combo lights, echoing just a little bit of the old 2002 Touring.

BoxerFanatic, troublesome iconoclast. > thegregorius 05/22/2015 at 19:26

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The distorted grille was the death-knell for Pontiac as well. The designers lost the chart, and made it easier for the decision makers to knee-jerk and kill the brand that was withering on the vine.

mwoodski > thegregorius 05/22/2015 at 19:53

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The grille on those cars was super tall though, so running a short one wouldn’t have been correct.

coqui70 > thegregorius 05/22/2015 at 20:06

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Take off those weird fenders please.

thegregorius > mwoodski 05/23/2015 at 05:04

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Yes, I agree, but the grille was tall and narrow on the original, not comically oversized. It’s like they tried to draw it with the same height as on the CSL, but while keeping the height/width ratio of their current fascia. I would personally either abandon these proportions and make something closer to the original, or abandon the height cue and add the grille to the pretty long list of things that don’t reference the original.

The amazing thing is that since creating this, I've found out that there are people out there who thinks that the concept looks good as it is.