Controversial BMW designer Chris Bangle has been named man of the year by an American magazine at the Detroit motor show, while his Z4 was picked as the design of 2003.
Controversial BMW designer Chris Bangle has been named man of the year by an American magazine at the Detroit motor show, while his Z4 was picked as the design of 2003.
According to magazine made the presentations at the Detroit motor show this week to coincide with its January issue.
called Bangle “the most controversial car designer in the world.” The magazine’s editors said the choice of man of the year was not easy, but they “all agreed that no single person in the automotive world has caused as much impassioned conversation, as much controversy, as this Europe-based American.”
In awarding the design of the year to the Z4, one of Bangle’s most talked-about shapes, the magazine noted that it is “one of the few all-new cars this year,” adding that it “breaks new ground with its complex, not to say convoluted, play of convexity and concavity linked to hard lines that flow in the direction the car will move.” The Z4 “is sculpturally dynamic and quite unlike anything else on the market”.
The magazine also selected Nissan’s 350Z as its 2003 automobile of the year. noted that, “a real sportscar doesn’t come along every day. That’s one reason the Nissan 350Z is an event. And, like every real sports car, it has a kind of purity to it, a dynamic quality that’s beyond the usual empty phrases about good power and good handling.
“We’re stunned by the goodness of the 350Z’s performance. The quality of Nissan’s execution pushes the outside of the performance envelope in every department.”
