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      10-19-2011, 10:37 AM   #42
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Quote:
Originally Posted by esqu1re View Post
Now, I'm not saying it is ugly or anything. . . it's just too similar to the 5 series. The e9x was, at the very least, more distinct from the 5er.
Bear in mind, though, that BMW's marketing team advised the designers of the E90 to "tone it down on the Bangling" so as not to incite as strong of an aversive initial response as did the E65 7-series and the E60 5-series. As the E60 was BMW's most dramatic representation of Bangle's design rationale--or "irrationale," if i may--, the E90 was set apart.

From Car and Driver:
Quote:
The 3-series, 30 years old and now entering its fifth generation, is the car that made BMW what it is today The bestselling premium model worldwide, it accounts for some 60 percent of the one million new cars BMW sells each year. The message to the anarchic Bangle was: Don't mess with the DNA of the goose that laid the golden egg.
However I do recall many E46 owners responding to the E90 with disgust. One piece from either Road & Track, Automobile, or Car and Driver (I cannot remember which) was written by an editor whose wife, upon seeing the press release pictures of the E90, declared something along the lines of, "No way are we buying that car." And years passed as they so quickly do, and that editor found himself in an E90; shocker.

And then you all got used to it, helped along by the LCI which turned the vivacious and aggressive, yet noncontroversial E90 into a sedan even more representative of those characteristics.

But the F10 5-series seemed, for better or worse, to have forgotten the E60 altogether. It was as if the E60 never existed. And that bothered a lot of you. Yet sales are high. But alas, here we are, with a newly designed 3-series--the F30--a noncontroversial design with a bit of pizzaz and a whole lot of flair. You all were shocked when the E90 came out as a subdued E60, wanting something even more subtle, and now that BMW has answered you with the F30, you don't like how boring it is? Boring? The car is most certainly not boring. Such an ugly thing to say, or even imply--boring. I'm bored of you because that's all you seem to be able to say about it.

But I digress...the fact of the matter is, the F30 will still drive like a 3-series should--albeit probably a bit more comfortably. And as all new designs do, it will grow on you. And most of you will probably buy it. Not because it's boring, and not because it's outlandish, and not because it's somewhere in between. You will buy it because it's a BMW 3-series, and that's all the reason you'll ever need.
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