German Car Zone

Love it already and cannott wait for the official pics. Just one thing bugging me. Those mirrors look uncool IMO.

actually the Sheryl Crow song stuck in my head as it was on the radio when I was driving home , incidentally I came across a Panamera and seen the new concealed downforce rear wing in action at first I thought it was about to transform into Panamericon.

Is is the silver colour that makes the face look less gigantic?

Another one of those pointless, slow as cancer releases. I marvel at the folly of it.

Exactly, the car is bloody out there... what could they possibly be waiting for?

I hope it's NOT the colour! You just find the correct words to justify the nose, as I repeatedly tried to....GIGANTIC! hahaha...Now that's the word!

I really hope that it looks more proportional in real life, the Mini crossover is going to be the one to go for in the looks depatment - Let the internal battle commence!

The color may have something to do with it since we now see more of the finer lines, so it makes the car look a tad more 'skeletal', something that the darker brown color of the test mules didn't really show-up in full effect.
Also, it could again be the black-tape on the headlight clusters. As with the 1 series, when the black-tape was on the headlights the front-end didn't seem that large, but once the 1er's bug-eyes were shown, the car seemed larger in the face.

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I actually believe there is point to this snails-pace unveiling tactic... in fact I think it's a very deliberate strategy that BMW have employed once they did a study on the marketing 'shortcomings' associated with the E65 7er's unveiling.
Eventhough the E65 7er's unveiling did its job of stirring up debate and controversary, I always felt that BMW didn't give this car's launch full justice because they didn't spend enough time and effort in explaining the car's 'radical' new design direction and most importantly WHY there was such a significant shift in BMW design (as well as a change in direction for BMW as a whole). Recently SCOTT27 backed-up this opinion of mine, and hence why I now think that BMW now have employed this strategy of taking quite a bit of time in fully unveiling their vehicles. Of course, the car's level of disguise/cladding gradually decreases as it goes further down the testing process, but at this current stage of the X1 (where we pretty much know 95% of what it'll look like), I feel that BMW's line of thinking is that of letting enthusiasts as well as the public as much time as possible to get used to the car's design. With a number of recent BMWs, the first impression of the car has usually been 'what on earth are BMW thinking?!!' ... or 'that's too radical!' ...but as we're given more time, and given more and more snipets of a particular model, we begin to warm-up to it, and by the time official press release comes around, we already are used to and *hopefully* accepting of the car's design. Also, by having people already accepting and used-to the design of the car allows people to be more understanding of the marketing message coz they can relate the design and features of the car to the image being potrayed in all the tv/magazine/online ads.
This was definitely the case the new 5er GT. BMW took a lot of time slowly showing what the car would look like (prior to the 5er GT concept's unveiling), and the vast majority of us were talking the car down and wondering how the hell BMW could make such an odd-shape car look appealing. As the car's disguise was slowly stripped-down, most of us began to realise this car now had some potential (in terms of design that is). By the time the first official photos were released, we had become accepting of the car's overall shape, and after seeing all those fancy press photos many of us (including myself) were VERY impressed with the 5er GT's design. Since most people are now accepting of the car's design (we may not love the design, some may still dislike it, but we accept what it looks like)..when it comes to all the marketing material that will soon follow the 5er GT's launch, we won't be so absorbed and 'distracted' by just the design of the car, but rather, we will be able to understand the marketing message by creating a link between the car's design and features with that of the imagery included within in each marketing material.

Notice how that once the official press photos of the 5er GT were unveiled, nearly all the discussion in the 5er GT thread on our forum focused on the practicality, the point (or lack thereof) of the car, and the feasibility of a target market... rather than having a - sometimes heated - debate centered around the design of this latest radical BMW.

I'll admit that this may only be a small point and also play only a small part in the overall marketing strategy of each BMW vehicle, but I honestly feel there is a point to this slow-unveiling tactic that BMW now use for each new vehicle.


Maybe Scott of Eni can shed further light on this.

Looks Better/Shaper then the X5!

Wouldn't say that... X5 is still the best looking SUV from BMW. Beats current X3 though

Well judging by the front this SUV looks far shaper and much more aggressive then the X5. The X5 actually looks dull compared to this and this is suppose to be the baby.