We kick off the week with my rendering of the future BMW kid-SAC (Sports Activity Coupe), the X4. BMW gave away their intentions to build this thing back in 2001, when they served us the first dish cooked with their new flame surfacing baking technique. Chief Chef Chris Bangle's concept blended concave and convex aluminum surfaces in an "interesting" asymmetrical design. The hottest feature of the car: access to the back seats via the reverse opening “hayon”. (Un)fortunately we won’t be seeing such a fancy/expensive/cool-but-unpractical solution on a production car soon– just as we didn’t get to see the dual wing doors from the Z9 Granturismo on any of the 6 Series models. However, some of the design elements of the X Coupe were really nice and able to survive the marketing/production battle. Anyway, I envision the X4 as an X Coupe with a slightly larger passenger compartment, less sharp edges (concave-convex shape blending accidents), some plastic (scratch-proof) elements in the lower part and an X6 gene transplant– just so we can be sure that the newcomer is a member of BMW's ever-burgeoning family of niche products. In fact, one wonders what else they could possibly have in store.
[For more Avarvarii photochopistry, click here.]
Andrei – Nice photoshop work; unfortunately this thing is not nearly ugly enough to pass the Chris Bangle’s “mangled-another-one” test. You might want to try one with gratuitous headlight cutlines that lead into the door openings, add a ‘flame surfacing’ element that aligns with the windshield and then ensure that the back end can trace its lineage to one of the weird Rodan-meets-Godzilla Japanese cars of the 1970’s. The grille is far too tasteful for a Bangle design; I might suggest a nice handlebar-moustache-shaped chrome element to cap the double kidney; you might cap it off with overly large headlamp buckets to complete the design statement.
Bangle’s designs are so well received that my local dealer is selling Z4’s at $13,000 off MSRP. It seems sad that an otherwise enormously competent little coupe is selling at $10,000 less than its direct competitor, the Cayman.
Just a comment on the doors in concept cars (usually gullwing doors, or suicide doors, etc): they aren’t like that because they’re being considered for production, but because it’s the only good way to show off the interior of cars that no one’s allowed to sit in.
Nice photo. Too bad they didn’t roll the hood back on itself, just to make it look completely like a midevil dwarf’s shoe.
Seriously, this car makes me want to do the “Safety Dance.”
Another 16 or so models and BMW’s product line should be complete.
edgett and Samir… still laughing from your comments. Well done!
What about the X0? Come on Bimmer its the only logical place to go from here, 1 passenger microcar with 24″ of ground clearance and no storage capacity whatsoever.