BMW 4 series coupe concept

They look like mouldings. Those bits on the bumper protrude.

I’m not sure I’d be a huge fan even if it had a normal grille. It looks curiously flabby and under-wheeled, and the back is just a straight rip-off of an Audi A5.

That’s a good point, you see the grille and look away so don’t realise quite how flabby and dull the rest of it is

Looks like an updated version of that Hyundai Coupe.

So the conclusion here is that it looks crap from the side and the rear as well as the front, yes?

I'm quite happily surprised. I was expecting something truly bloody awful but that is merely unpleasant. Its an improvement on the 8 series design if I ignore the front end. Its a bit like they've bottled out on giving it the full Lexus treatment of razor sharpe lines and have rounded them off and in my opinion why it looks a little bloated.

I'm minded of similar outrage and revulsion when the Bangle-designed 5 series and 7 series came out. Calls to boycott the brand, burning effigies of Chris Bangle etc. Now we all look back and acknowledge they were great designs and have aged well. It's not true that the customer is always right or even that they know what they want. If car designers listened to focus groups they'd end of going round and round in ever decreasing circles of conservative, careful design. Someone has to break the cycle and strike out in a new direction.

With the exception to the grille I quite like it, particularly in profile. My criticism of the current 4 series and GC are that they are too much like the 3 series. In fact you often have to look quite closely to tell the difference between and 4 door 3 series and a 5 door GC, but BMW expects you to pay a significant premium for the latter. In that respect I applaud BMW for properly differentiating the two models.

Two days in and I'm getting used to the grille too...

The steering wheel looks the same as the one on the new 3 series, I prefer the older one to it.

Ignoring the front the rest of the car is a bit of a disappointment compared to the original concept on page 1 of this thread. The acreage of metal above the wheelarch in particular adds to the flabby look.
The view from right behind is 'generic German coupe' now.

Agreed.

And the 5-series only ever looked good in MSport or M5 form. An SE-spec E60 has always been fairly ugly.

My mother had an E46 1.8 SE. It was dreadfully vanilla.

Most things are in that sort of specification to be fair.

And the saloon version of the E46 was perhaps the least good-looking version - always thought they looked a bit chubby compared to other variants.

I've only ever driven one E46, which was about as far removed from your mother's example as possible, given it was an Alpina B3 which Munich Legends gave me as a courtesy car when the M5 was in being serviced.

I think the only reason the new 1 series is invisible is because it looks like several other 5 door Focus sized hatches and now its fwd its lost the long bonnet look that being rwd presumably forced on it.

If you see one in isolation the crayon wielders have spent a lot of time with scoops, lines, etc and its not boring to look at but its certainly not attractive either.

Looking at an E46 or E39 its amazing how simple they appear now but the latter in particular has a sense of restrained power and strength (I don't think I'm putting that well) when you give it more than a fleeting glance, unless its an SE model.

Best picture so far, nice colour and it’s far away....






Same as the 3 series up front, as you’d expect.