Love it!!!

I'm more interested in that retro 328 coupe.

Based on what you guys know, how many competing designs do you think are floating around the DesignWorks office?

Two? Three? Does only one office work on a car, or is the effort international?

Usually many design teams are in the game.

I'll give an example of E90 design process.

Several design teams from Newbury Park (DesignWorks) Studio & Munich Studio were asked to attend the internal "competition race" for the E90 design (exterior & interior). They were given some general directions from development & marketing what kind of vehicle E90 would be (mostly dimension wise).

Many sketches, CGIs, models were made by each design team. The design chiefs led the design process and instructed the teams all along. And then every three months the Board of Management eliminated some of given design proposals. The only BoM member who was allowed to see & comment the proposals was prof. dr. Goeschel (development chief) during the process.

By the BoM chosen designs then went one step further in design process - some corrections were done where needed. So in the end only two teams left - one from Newbury Park, one from Munich. They made their proposals in clay models in 1:1 and BMW Group chief of design (=Bangle) presented them to Board of Management - and the BoD has chosen the proposal form Munich team.

And for every BMW Group vehicle the design process is very similar to this one explained.

Very cool. Thanks for all that information Eni.

Would be awesome to know what "Option #2" was for all our favorite cars. Take the E90 for example. I'm sure the 3er design that was rejected was just as sharp and informed as anything else on the road, but somehow the car we see won over the BoM. Was the other design more conservative? Was it funky looking? Sadly, we'll probably never know.

I only have an info that the winning proposal (= current E90 3er) was chosen because it fitted a bit better between 1er & 5er design, while still having its own identity & style. So with choosing this 3er design as we see it on the roads today they made cars in the BMW model line looking more consistent yet individual.

So the other proposal had to be
a) too similar to 5er or 1er, or
b) too different from 5er & 1er.

I hope this helped.

well eni, now my imagination is runnig wild, but thanks anyway

Osna brought up a good point a couple of posts ago.

We haven't even seen the facelift for the 5er yet. I knoe Enilab has told us how the process goes and when BMW is going to finalize the design or begin the designing stage for the next 5er, but I dont' think that should matter, if we have yet to see the new facelift.

Anyone know (Enilab) when BMW is going to have the facelift and how aggressive of a change it will be?

I think bad idea

Woah! It seems we have a new member! Welcome aboard mate!