I usually stay far away from debates over car design and asthetics, but hey, since you and I see eye-to-eye on so many things, it's amusing to argue with you over
something.
👍
The E39 is a good looking car. But it's good looking in a predictable, conventional, inoffensive way. The car is so rounded off it looks like a pebble at the bottom of a stream, worn smooth over hundreds of years. There's nothing to catch the eye, no complex shapes, no visual drama. It's the automotive equivalent of the cute girl next door that doesn't go away to college and transform into a centerfold. It's safe. Something you can take home to your mama, but never something that causes your buddies to go slack-jawed and hemorrhage with jealousy.
Well, perhaps we just have a different threshold, then. Because every time I see an E39 M5, I go slack-jawed and hemorrhage with jealousy. Even a 540i Sport can make me snap my head around.
The E60 has drama. It has interesting shapes and details. Look at the strong center character line that sweeps from the front corner lights to the rear ones. Look how much tension that line creates --its like the skin of the car is stretched taunt along this 'rib'. The car is lean, coiled for action, bulging with suggestion of the energy trapped just beneath the surface. This car is a chiseled scupture of a Greek goddess compared to the pebble of the E39.
Alright. Counterpoint.
And therein lies the E60's problem: it
relies on drama to do what the E39 did naturally. Your 'bulging' is my 'bulbous': look at how awkward the hood profile of the E60 is compared to the E39. It can't decide if it's sloped or flat, or both; it almost looks like it slopes
down to the windshield, like some Ed Roth cartoon. I've seen that same effect from other angles, so it's not just that picture. It's got a dorky stance, too: minus the confident, wheels-first stance of the older cars, but not pulling off the Audi forward-reach, either.
The E60 is basically a 'decorated shed', to borrow a term from the world of architectural criticism. It's an overall drab, uninispired design that has been rendered striking by the application of lots of meaningless surface detail. It lacks all subtlety and coherence of detailing. Instead, it's a collection of visual catch-phrases, empty of substance:
- Today's oversized wheels demand oversized wheel arches
- Simple, well-integrated lightpods are so 1999; we need bizarrely-shaped things that look like a sheepdog on a G-force test sled
- Less Is A Bore - More is More! ...enough said
- Lets go to a lot of trouble to make the sides smooth and eliminate the belt line...
- ...what? Door handles? Crap - ah, just plunk 'em on there. Good thing we left plenty of room. Oh, yeah, the marker light - just stick that anywhere, too.
I could go on, but I'm sure you're getting the point. But the E60's designers never really trust
us to get the point! So they keep hitting us over the head with every design decision -
"It's
dramatic!" *whap*
"It's
powerful!" *smack*
"It's
complicated!" *boof*
"It's
expensive!" *pow*
"It's
not American!" *thud*
It's a perfect car for the
noveau-riche: overstated instead of understated; flashy and classless. BMW has done precisely what Coach Luggage did, on a massive scale. Coach used to make expensive, simple, elegant handbags that lasted for 20 years and looked good for all 20, too. Now they make really expensive, tacky, ostentatious bags that have the Coach logo splattered all over them and will be out of style next year. Who wants to drive a $40,000 car that looks like a $30,000 car, when you can drive a $60,000 car that
everyone knows cost $60,000? What's the point of pimpin' if you ain't BIG pimpin'?
...so that's why I don't like the E60.
Cadillac's designers have managed to throw off a heavier aesthetic yoke than BMW's designers
ever had to wear. Yet they've managed to do so in a fundamental, meaningful way that makes each new car a coherent package: like 'em or not, the new Cadillacs are styled to an integrated, consistently-applied set of design rules across the line. That saves them from the cynical 'expensive brand/logo identity' school that results in plain $300 Tommy jeans, ugly $500 Coach handbags, and overwrought $60,000 BMWs.
