New sketches of E60--It's not that bad

These were posted on the M3 board at the Org, and I haven't seen them before, so I thought I'd link them over here. These are purportedly original design sketches of the E60 concept; I don't know the source, but in style they do resemble the E46 sketches BMW sent out to coupe owners (and that I have hanging in my office), so they may be the real McCoy.

You can definitely see some of the elements of the CS1 in these sketches, especially the "shoulder" line and the "waterfall" away from it that is supposed to evoke the styling of the New Class. The E65 bustle is present but toned down, and the new design doesn't have the E65's weird cutlines, either. Overall, I like the way that the high trunk is integrated here, with a pronounced wedge shape. It shows that the E65 solution is NOT the only way to acheive a tall back end, but on the down side it does resemble certain recent Pontiac concept cars (which are, in their own way, caricatures of current BMW models--figure that one out).

As with the E65, I think the details here are going to be critical. How the headlights are executed, for example, can make the difference between a good looking, clean design and one that jars the sensbilities. It's hard to tell from sketches how these things will play out.

Overall, though, I'm heartened by this design. Having read the Kacher piece on how the 5er was even more radical than the 7er, I expected the worst, but these sketches aren't bad at all. While sportier than the 7er, I think that they are generally more conventional than the E65, which sought to break all sorts of weird new ground.



Post on E46 M3 board

"Not that bad?" Not that good, either.

;-)


Truth be told, looks an awful lot like the Infiniti G35 to me...

V-10 M5 for me please :thumb:

The sketch certainly looks a lot like these computer-generated images that we saw earlier too (I think in Autocar, which, according to someone on the org's 5er board, "has a good reputation and their prediction has been spot on many times before."

The biggest difference is the kidney grilles, and I would be more inclined (unfortunately) to think they will look more like these than in the above sketch.

The transition from sketch to steel, plastic and glass has plenty of opportunities to transform this from an "okay" design to one as awful as the E65. While certainly not as bad as it *could* be, since it's not "real" yet, I am taking minimal comfort from those sketches.