ok it's official. CAR mag is crap. they've just named Chris Bangle as car designer of the 21st century! bloody hell

one of the reasons cited was the W221 (hence i posted this here). they said that, whereas Merc used to be counted on for "restraint", now they are following BMW's lead in designing striking cars. especially the Bangle butt. hmm, looks like they didn't check out the Maybach 57S they were reviewing in the same issue, which is where the S-butt came from. and they are forgetting the W140, SL, SLR... heck, a huge line of Mercs whose designs have been anything but restrained.

they also said the headlamps look like BMW.. erm..... just nothing to say. WHICH BMW, exactly? if they had said Peugeot i might still see the slight resemblance. lol.

oh, on a side note they also had a "exclusive picture" of the new E-class (ahm, which i've seen months ago on this forum), and said the "quad headlight look comes form Lexus" (what about W210? W211?) and the "slightly rising, sporty flanks" too come from Lexus (what about W203? or even W220 and W211?). while the interior apparently grows ever closer to BMW's iDrive (what about W211's COMAND 2?). sigh, i give up.

Sadly, I hate to admit it, but Chris Bangle probably IS one of the most "influential" car designers ever -- much the same way Hitler and Stalin were "influential" world leaders.

I'm just glad he never met Harvey Earl, the most influential designer of the 20th century. If he did, the 7 probably would have had portholes and fins on along with the famous Bangle-butt.

Chris Bangle influenced me to stop buying BMW's.

I just hope that the person who wrote that article is in some way able to keep their job.

so true..

huuh that article really seems to be bs!
anyway i don't know how to name the designer of the 21st century in the
beginning of it.

people ve got such short memory, most influential designer of the century and he s only done significant work in what, last 10 years if that.. what about italian design houses with real heritage?

Chris bangle has influenced the design of cars for the next few years. Lexus is even copying him over mercedes now.

Nothing but marketing/publicist B.S.-

I did not buy a replacement to my 2001 750iL until now because I hated the Bangle design concept, it took me 5 year models to get used to it and a face lift to decide to buy the 7 series. Bangle is a disaster and should have been fired a long time ago, but BMW would rather praise him than admit to such a horrible mistake. Bangle is the most famouse car designer due to his bad work not excellence, and I own a 7 series. they had to facelift the car for me to buy one.
I sure hope that the next 7 series will be Bangle desease free. However, there are angles where I like the 7 series more than the S550, and I do like the Maybach rear, it is very classy, i am not in love with the S550 front.

Either way, if I can get a discount on the S550 (7%) through European Delivery I will buy it without hesitation as a 2007 replacement to my 2006 750li.

It is getting harder to find nice car designs, the ones that I like are the Nissan Maxima, Lexus GS 2006 rear, Audi A8/A6 are O.K looking, The rear on the E class is nice and the front og the CLS is nice . the most beautiful ordinary mass production car on the road is deinitely the SLK, the SL used to be my favorite, not anymore. I think that Mercedes designs have definitely surpassed the work Bangle did in systematically making BMW cars more ugly.

I guess its the sign of times and people usually don't like it when there is a shift in paradigm. Every few years there is a common pattern of shapes and design in automobile industry. It won't be too long that new designs we are seeing now will become a norm and the current models will look really outdated compared to them.