Welcome to BMW TODAY. Todays topic: the brand new BMW i4 concept.
And with me is Domagoj Dukec, Head of BMW Design. Welcome Domagoj.
How did you guys mentioned to get this masterpiece in terms of design ?
I always question myself how do you guys make a BMW
more sporty than the predecessor?
Of course it’s easier to make a car sportier when it has great proportions.
We have great architecture and of course it helps to express it.
And this is already 50% off the beef. In the front it’s of course the double kidney
and the headlights which are very focused.
You see this headlights which are more diagonal with this double function,
which are cut and it looks almost like an eagle eye.
Domagoj, if I rip off the logos and have a look at this, it would definitely still be a BMW.
What is the secret formula for you guys, where is the BMW genetic,
that even if you don’t put a logo, people would recognize this as a BMW?
As I mentioned, the kidney gives a very strong identity, but in the side
what makes a BMW is often the proportion.
There are a whole lot of designers around the world following your blog.
If you want to give them a cooking receipt to create their own good looking car,
what are the main points how to start design and how to end it up from the front to the rear?
I mentioned one thing, proportion is the most important thing.
You can do a lot of lines on a car, but when the proportion is not right, it will never get the
same attraction. So every line we use on a good design, it’s actually to underline
already the proportion which have a certain character.
So what we did is we have one line here which is a little bit lower so it brings actually
the weight quite low because it shows a lot of light. So it’s a shoulder,
which brings the weight and the center of gravity quite low.
Then to pronounce the wheels there’s one line then on this surface above
and it’s almost growing out. This whole volume is not the same surface
like here, it’s more like an added volume on top like on a rally car.
I checked out the rear before you came and I must say:
this is stunning if you have this in front of you.
And I can see also those 3-D shaped tail lights.
There are quite a lot of new elements in there even though there’s no exhaust.
You have put a diffuser, why is that?
The whole rear is very simple and clean.
You don’t see any gaps, it’s just very pure and full. Just one sharp line on the top,
which gives also this nice shadow area, which is also like a duck tail,
which is also very typical for BMW.
And then these two taillights. BMW has this typical signature
which is always like a L shape. What is different, it’s shaped as one single piece.
Out of this whole signature we can express all functions we want.
So we see the red light, which is the normal rear light of the car.
If you turn right or left the indicator would go out of the same shape,
and if you break it would be also be the same shape.
It’s all in one. One question about series technology is the curved display.
I’m actually a big fan of this one. Has this any chance to get to the series production?
Yes. What do you see here is what you are going to see in the production vehicle.
How do you guys get to this color? I mean color makes such a difference, right?
And that is the copper color we’ve been seeing in the iNEXT already.
You can see already that we played with copper color on the i8.
Much stronger, brighter, as it’s a sports car,
and here it has this really pale, discrete elegant touch.
One last question on this one, you mentioned you’re a team of designers, around 100
- when you’re doing the design process like this, is there one who draws the sketch,
and people say “that’s it!”, or are you mixing the ideas of several designers into one vehicle?
We are around 700 designers for the whole BMW group.
There are also engineers just for the design department, but the designers with me,
they work on all. There is color and trim, interior, exterior.
So only 1/3 of them is working on exterior, so not everyone.
In the beginning of such a project, it’s always a competition.
And then let’s say 10 designers would work on this car - they would sketch
- everybody has his own ideas - but of course all know what is the BMW strategy,
and people should also have this as a guideline.
I don’t say what should be where, but of course there is a certain cooking book
saying what should be there to express: it’s a BMW.
Finally are you the one that goes: thumbs up or thumbs down?
At the end it’s my responsibility to say: this is good, this is not,
but it’s still a whole new approach, which takes a few weeks, months,
because people come with great ideas, and I have something in my mind,
but of course it’s all inspiration. Let’s say, everybody comes up with something
and then you can just point out: Ok, I think this fits well in the brief,
because there is a certain brief from sales and marketing,
because they order a certain product.
I have to make sure that what we deliver is really what was ordered.
I think that is a good statement, so it’s like a small piece of crop you put into the soil,
you add water for several weeks and then suddenly you find an i4 concept car
in your garden. Thank you very much Domagoj!
It was pretty interesting to me as well, and thanks for watching BMW TODAY!