You’ve likely heard of Gandini, Giugiaro, and Bracq. But famous car designers also include Frank Stephenson, one of the most influential men in the biz.
Born 61 years ago in Morocco, the British-Spanish-American automotive styling meister studied art before heading to Ford in Cologne to put his mark on the Escort RS Cosworth. MINI, Maserati, Fiat, Lancia, Alfa Romeo, and McLaren have also employed his services, and some of his most important creations include the P1 hypercar, MP4-12C supercar, the F430, the Cinquecento, as well as the BMW X5.
Believe it or not, the Bavarian utility vehicle was penned in two hours or thereabouts on a plane on the way to a meeting with three people who would work alongside Stephenson. Those three were all involved with the development of the Lamborghini Miura, and that’s why the first-gen X5 looks so elegant to this day.
Given his relationship to BMW, it doesn’t come as a surprise that Frank has a thing or two to say about the second generation of the 4 Series. The proportions are perfectly fine according to Stephenson, but the rear end is a bit busy and not exactly recognizable as a Bimmer due to the different design direction for the taillights.
The front-fender vents aren’t to his liking as well, and adding insult to injury, the G22 doesn’t feature Hofmeister kinks on the C-pillars. The most polarizing trait of the two-door coupe, however, is the snout that doesn’t look like a kidney grille at all.
“I could rip the grille all day long,” said Frank, and the conclusion to this and the other mess-ups is rather obvious. “My objection to this design is that they have just tossed the baby out with the bath water in the sense that the things that made it look like a BMW are slowly dissolving away and going in a direction that makes the 4 Series look more like any other car and less like what BMW is known to be.”
Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder and standing still in terms of automotive design isn’t a good thing either, but the folks in Munich may want to reconsider their stylistic direction. Unfortunately, that’s not going to happen either.
In a previous story where I was criticized for going hard on the G22 snout, yours truly has mentioned what design chief Domagoj Dukec thinks about the more skeptical guys like me. “In this business, you can’t listen to social media reactions. It won’t help you,” translating to “it is what it is, live with it.”
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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