After TTAC highlighted Chris Bangle's "axis of white power" verbal faux pas in a video on a BMW web site, Spiegel Online (German language site) has been looking into the incident. Calling the video a "PR disaster," they question how it ever made it through BMW's communication department. They then quote TTAC publisher Robert Farago: "English is Bangle's first language, he should be aware of such things." A BMW spokesman told Spiegel both the company and Bangle understand the criticism for the remark, and said, "Chris Bangle sympathizes in no way with any right-wing or racist positions… Bangle will make a personal statement on this topic on the BMW-Web-TV platform shortly". BMW removed the video from their site after the Spiegel interview; the link now takes you to a generic BMW PR video. Before they pulled it, a Google search on "chris bangle nazi" returned the link for the video. We may have raised the issue of BMW's obliviousness to Bangle's remark, but we sure as Hell know that ain't right.
[TTAC scribe Martin Schwoerer has kindly uploaded the clip onto YouTube.]
Ah, Sehr Gut!
As an active member of BMW’s “axis of white power”, I’m really gonna miss that video. Damn you, TTAC.
Anyone care to comment on what context it was said in? I can’t read ze deutch. Was he talking about German manufaqcturers or white cars or what?
Do they mean something else by “right-wing”?..or are they shunning conservatives in the same sentence as they are denouncing racism?
Tomorrow’s NY Times Headline:
Chris Bangle invited to speak at Columbia University
RyanK02,
I read it the same way you did. Hey Chris: A great job awaits you in BMW’s PR dept. once they wise up and can you from their design dept.
tankd0g: Anyone care to comment on what context it was said in? I can’t read ze deutch. Was he talking about German manufaqcturers or white cars or what? He was at the Geneva auto show and commenting on the fact that most of the BMWs they had on display there were white (even though they don't show any white cars in the video clip). He said, "It's kind of an axis of white power here; there are really strong white cars." The comment, while made innocently, shows a poor choice of words on his part.
RyanK02,
They mean people who are on the right of conservatives. (or the nationalistic types that are part of the conservatives)
There are many nations in Europe where more than two parties, have chances or get elected into parliament.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_politics
“Fascism is usually described as right-wing, although some scholars dispute that classification. Others argue that there are elements of both left and right ideology in the philosophy underlying the development of Fascism. See: Far right and Fascism and ideology.”
Oh for the love of…. If he worked for anyone but German’s that probably would have gone unnoticed.
Noted.
After I read this I didn’t know whether I should laugh or be concerned about how seriously these few words were taken (words that were recorded and on display for 12 months without complaints, that is).
Well, the matter of the fact is that nowadays every company has to be more than politically correct in every aspect, as it seems. I’m not taking sides here – I see that some people here think it was indeed an unlucky choice of words while most rather or less don’t mind. I for my part, I was reading the aforementioned article in a german online magazine and that’s why I came here.
To TTAC, I would kindly ask you that once you started all this fuss about nearly nothing, you should be at least fair enough to mention that BMW has indeed answered on this matter with a special bulletin from Chris Bangle himself:
http://www.bmw-web.tv/en/view/cid/0/pid/pXzR9IC
Hopefully this will settle soon – you should not forget that at the german BMW HQ there are many, many people from all over the world working for this company who are thinking that BMW is indeed a great company.
Regards, a bavarian but not a BMW employee ;)
I’m blogging the reply now.
Thank you.