By Chris Ward, July 26, 2022
It seems that BMW treats the 7 Series as a kind benchmark for testing public taste and patience. That is certainly the case with the seventh generation G70. The most controversial aspect of the new 7 Series is the front grille and split double headlights. The rest of the car is fairly modern-conventional. Some would say conservative in the styling department. It’s an odd mix, aggressive front end, and the remainder of the body styling is traditional yet contemporary. For the 7 Series to work it would have been better for the stylists to go aggressive from front to rear or totally conservative.
Do you remember BMW’s Future Vision Luxury Concept from 2014? That was a vision we could believe in. The Vision Luxury Concept sedan was perfect from head to toe. The styling was based on the E38, probably the best-looking 7 Series to date. If BMW had evolved the E38 and iterated the Future Vision Luxury Concept into a production reality, Martin you can take my money now.
We do not know why BMW abandoned the Vision Luxury Concept as a basis for a future 7 Series. In the end, we got the G70. The all-new 7 Series is a bold and interesting design, it has a visual heft. However, the front-end design is out of touch with the rest of the car.
For this article, we are purely interested in exterior styling because engineering is a known quantity. A car can either be reliable or not, a car can have excellent driving dynamics or not, etc, etc. The average consumer is drawn to a BMW because he/she is fed a diet of information that BMW is the best premium luxury car brand on the planet.
The information is either delivered through corporate marketing campaigns or BMW puts pressure on motoring publications to write puff pieces favorable to the corporate narrative. Yes, motoring publications, fearful of losing access to BMW’s corporate jet, have become stenographers for BMW.
One such person who is not a BMW stenographer is auto enthusiast and CGI artist who is better known via his Instagram account idlar_project. Idlar has created a CGI of the BMW M8 bearing the front end of the G70 model series.
While the ‘facelift’ has been expertly rendered by idlar_project, it rubberstamps the 7 Series front end as an exercise in over-design for the sake of looking unique.
