- BMW‘s president of design indicates that the brand is going in a new direction.
- No longer will each model appear as though it’s the same sausage in a different size.
- We’ll have to wait til the end of the decade to see what it’s cooking up.
It’s not often big automakers reshuffle their design team but that’s exactly what BMW did last week. It’s almost like they’re reading your comments here dear reader. A reshuffle doesn’t always work out though. Sometimes, they still go sideways. If BMW’s vice president for design Adrian van Hooydonk has anything to say about it, the changes will be positive and welcome.
He recently sat down for an interview and let us all in on a few details about the future of BMW design. In short, the theme we’ve seen come to light over the last few years isn’t going to continue on for much longer. The Neue Klasse concepts we’ve seen recently are steps in the right direction and new hires Maximilian Missoni from Polestar and Oliver Heilmer from Mini will helm future designs.
More: BMW Shakes Up Design Team, Polestar’s Missoni Takes Charge
Speaking to Top Gear, van Hooydonk said: “[Neue Klasse] is a big departure from where we were, it’s like we’re skipping a generation. Max won’t be influencing that but we’re working on cars for 2029 and 2030, cars he and Oliver will be influencing. We don’t want it to become a formula that just prints out BMWs of different sizes.
“We didn’t hire Max Missoni to get Polestar design here, it’s not what we want, it’s not what he wants, either. We want him very much to get his head around BMW and we will give him some time to do that. I encourage differentiation, but that will happen automatically with Max and Oliver.”
Notably, Max will handle middle- and luxury-class BMWs, while Oliver handles everything beneath that. In essence, the small BMWs and big BMWs will each get their own unique design language and within each subset, the cars should have their own flavor too. At the same time, the branches won’t be too different across this family tree.
“It’s still our intention that out of those two teams come products that fit together for the customer,” he says. “It’s my duty to ensure that BMW remains one brand globally with a recognizable design line. The new set-up could create tension or discussions, but that’s why I’m here. Nothing goes out the door unseen by me. ”
It’ll be late this decade before we see any of these products. Expect to see the first fruits of this labor sometime in 2029 or 2030.
