BMW Design Director Domagoj Dukec has revealed some insights regarding the future of the Bavarian brand’s visual direction. As the manufacturer transitions towards a more sustainable product line, he confirms that the future line-up will be bold and meaningful.
Speaking to Autocar, Dukec notes that the product emerging from BMW as of late has indeed been divisive but reiterates that the brand is opting for bold over bland. The decision to implement this now is to anticipate the generational transformation of electrification, digitalisation and sustainability.
“You can’t choose in which epoch you’re a designer, but it’s very interesting to be one in a time when the car industry is facing such major challenges, where you don’t even know if it will survive,” says Dukec. “You can use your creativity to offer more, to offer new experiences of mobility.”
The Neue Klasse platform has already been confirmed for future electrified product which comes as a revival of the popular line of models dating back to the 1960s. While this platform will draw inspiration from older models, where design is concerned, they will not be backward-looking at all.
“We don’t make a homage to Neue Klasse,” Dukec says. “But we’re a company who defined a new [market] segment and new product that was very relevant in the 1960s, combining elegance and dynamism in a way nobody else had before.”
“Neue Klasse will stand for electrification, digitalisation and sustainability,” he explains. “We’re asking: ‘How can we make a car that’s sustainable and intelligent and do more with less?’ This is something that’s very authentic to BMW.
“As designers, it’s about rethinking and reducing. It’s how we treat materials – not using chrome, creating materials to use less leather. For us, electrification alone isn’t the sustainable path it is for others. They think they make electric cars and there, work done. But the problem is bigger.”
“We must be bold and meaningful,” he says. “You can do bold through many tricks. Everybody knows how to make a car attractive, but if it’s not meaningful, it’s empty.
“The silhouette in the future will be something like the kidney grille today, where we make sure it’s the original but not retro. It has to be BMW.”
