Quasimodo’s New Clothes

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I say they’re wrong. Beauty either is or isn’t. It’s not some question of a subjective evaluation but rather common sense conveying a well proportioned image to your senses creating a well being, or in some cases, nausea.
The more criterias you want a car to adhere to, the less attractive it is going to be. If you, like BMW, decide you want a sporty, four door coupé (!), with a limousine-like backseat, then what you’re really after is something terrible, like an MPV. To disguise it into a faux GT is doing yourself a grand disservice as potential customers (everyone named Keith) will feel embarrassed, and the rest of us will point and laugh.

Chris Bangle certainly was controversial when at the helm of BMW’s designs but at least he pushed in one direction. Seeing the once proud BMW marque struggle with its new identity as crowd pleaser is awkward, for all of us. It’s like they’re trying to be Opel. What I don’t get is why the 5-series GT is needed at all? With a size the same as the 7-series but with the looks of an AMC Eagle, it is bound to be a lesser car, not least for us who have to look at the damn thing. Just like people wearing Ed Hardy, people driving the new 5-series GT will have to accept that we’ll be making fun of them, publicly.

Tags: BMW, GT

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 at 3:44 pm and is filed under Cars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.