Silbersix In New York Times
We're SUCH a hateful website.

Flash! Silbersix is in the New York Times!

It's true! In the wake of the debut of BMW's new 6 Series, New York Times reporter Fara Warner featured this site and its author in her very nice 1/23/04 piece on The Strum und Drang Over Chris Bangle. It seems that ours and others' reasoned criticism of BMW's styling chief has stirred a hornet's nest, to the point where Bangle proclaims that "everyone should have a hate website" just so they'll know how he feels.

In the article, Chris professes to want "dialogue" with his critics, but his unilateral actions in taking BMW design "where you don't want to go" (his words) say otherwise. In spite of overwhelmingly negative reaction from the world's great designers, automotive journalists and millions of BMW owners, Bangle and the powers that be in Munich have turned their backs on us.

So forgive us, Chris, if we have the audacity to speak out against what you're doing to a great marque. Excuse us if we give voice to our anguish as we witness your continued trashing of nearly a half-century of evolutionary design excellence. Your flame surfacing, gratuitous lines and disjointed bootlids have finally reached the new 6 Series. To know what the new Sixer could have been as the follow on to the elegant and timeless E24 6 Series is to feel a huge sense of loss. You have only to park the new 6 Series next to Aston-Martin's DB9 to instantly understand the glory that might have been BMW's.

In any event, hats off to Ms. Fara Warner and the New York Times. (We would reprint her article here except for the fee charged by the Times for doing so.) The result of the article can only be greater public awareness of a great car company gone terribly wrong. We hope and pray that the Quandt family and the board of directors in Munich will realize that, like the fabled king, BMW design under Bangle has no clothes. The chief designer is eloquent and persuasive in his efforts to convince the masses that his new threads are so very fashionable, but his words cannot cover the king's nakedness forever. Bangle's avant-garde designs will age badly; history will brand their graceless and dissonant lines as unworthy of the blue and white roundel.

In the meantime, BMW's original 6 Series and other great series' of the last 50 years will continue to stand the test of time. Fifty years from now, they will still possess the grace and finesse they were born with. Of them all, my heart belongs to the one and only original "Sixer" - the BMW 6 Series. -RS

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