Yet again we find ourselves unable to use the internet this week because the whole mess of tubes is clogged up with BMW fans yelling into cyberspace about the latest release from Munich. People, you’ve been upset by BMW horror shows for a few years now. They’ve even baited you about it on social media. The past is gone and it’s not coming back. If the internet was around in 1986 when the first M3 was launched, do you think the BMW propellor heads would have been complaining it wasn’t a rear engine 700? Well, it’s not 1986, it’s 2022, and there’s a new BMW M2 with a design that needs to be discussed. So let’s discuss.
Origins of the M
The M3 wasn’t born from a dream to build the ultimate road going three series. It was a Group A homologation special, and BMW had to build 5000 road cars to enable it to race in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM). Most eighties homologation specials were a bit bonkers – mass market hatches and saloons stuffed with weapons-grade racing parts that made them a bit awkward on the road. Peaky multi-valve engines, dogleg close ratio gearboxes, turbos the size of oil barrels with lag for days, that sort of thing. The M3 occupied a sort of middle ground between the uptight staidness of the Mercedes 190E 2.3 16 and working class lairyness of the Sierra Cosworth. Despite this stiff and ever evolving competition on and off the track, BMW ended up building nearly 18,000 of the things. The glory days of European technicolor tip tops knocking lumps out of each every other weekend have long since passed, but the M3 has stuck around as the ultimate expression of what BMW as a brand used to stand for, the very soul of their being.
As the M3 has evolved from scalpel to hammer, a void has been left underneath it, filled since 2015 by the F87 M2. The cooking versions of the 2 have long been seen as the spiritual carriers of the E30 torch, and the M2 the M3 without the weight of expectation. And yes, I will keep saying M3. Numbers haven’t meant anything to BMW for a long time so I’m just returning the favor. The M3 is what Will Hoy won the 1991 British Touring Car Championship in. The M4 is a motorway that runs from central London down to Devon and Cornwall.
The BMW and Triangles Problem
What is it with BMW design and triangles recently? The 2 series has been valiantly holding the line against the worst excesses of the rest of the range, but the base model 2 has a triangular transition from bumper to air vent. On the M Sport models they’re even more brutal with an inconsistent offset to the trim piece within. They totally clash with the shape of the headlights.
The new M2’s first improvement then is doing away with these three sided monstrosities completely. In giving the M2 a new front bumper, they’ve flattened off the lower line of the headlights, and made the vents a four sided shape. Along with a slight downsizing and re-profiling of the kidney grille the whole front graphic is much, much tidier and better resolved, and compared to the normal 2 the different elements are no longer fighting each other. The only issue is the weird gap on the top of the headlights where the hood meets the bumper. That’s horrible.
The Profile
The side view is not much changed apart from the reversion to a body colored rocker panel. It’s curious from a model differentiation point of view because the base 2 has body colored rockers, and the next trim up, M Sport has them in black. I’m invoking chief designer’s prerogative and going to slightly contradict something I’ve said in the past. I think body colored works better here, because the 2 is a (relatively) small car, and the M Sport 2 looks a little stretched and weak in between the wheels because there is less body color to read.
It’s hard to tell from the press photos, but I suspect the front fender is unchanged because the highlights and shut lines are exactly the same. The M2 does have an extra inch of track over the standard car, but differing wheel offsets or Photoshop could be keeping the wheel to arch ratio similar. This is the problem with doing this sort of crit from press photos, and not seeing the actual car. So caveat emptor and all that.
Speaking of highlights, judging by the distance they run back to meet the feature line running the length of the body, I think the transition from flared arch to body side could be a more gradual. It’s known as “lead in” and refers to how abruptly a surface changes from one direction to another. Take a look at the area around the rear quarters on an M3 to see how to get this calamitously wrong, because that car uses the same rear doors as the regular 3. Overall the side profile is pretty good, the proportions and volumes are in balance and it’s not overcomplicated. The straight on orthographic side view is always unflattering because there is no perspective, which consequently makes the overhangs look worse. You can never look at a car like this in real life, which is another reason studios use full size physical models as opposed to working solely digitally.
The Rear View
Tail lights and trunk lid appear to be same parts including the lip spoiler, but the bumper is a new part. I don’t like the way the diffuser is so prominent and cuts into the vertical surface running in between the rear vents. I find it hard to believe that it’s contributing much in the way of meaningful downforce looking at the shape of it, and the whole lower rear just feels fussy and busy, not helped by the fact there’s four exhaust tips crammed into a small space. Nudge them outwards or try just having twin exhausts to reduce the clutter. Lastly I think the vertical black vents need a bit less Z height – they’re forcing the feature line too close to the lower line of the tail lights, giving the surface below the lamps a bit of an overdone Brazilian butt lift feel.
The M2 is overall much more successful than the boggo models, but subtle it isn’t. It feels a bit OEM does aftermarket imported body kit. The blockiness of the front vents do integrate a lot better over the standard car, but if they were softened ever so slightly or had the lower out corner chamfered off (to match the inner top corner) the front graphic would be much more successful. The less said about the sensor placement the better, but there was probably no other way of doing it.
The Interior
I’m not an interior designer, so I’ll keep my comments to the display. We’ve seen this sort of bullshit recently in the S650 Mustang. What bugs me here is the M Sport 2 series has a digital display for the driver housed in a binnacle, and a separate display in the center. This is supposedly the next step up in technology but functionality aside it just looks so much worse. Judging by the lack of buttons I’m guessing a lot of the secondary controls have moved onto the touchscreen, with all the safety and usability issues that entails. This is a car that is supposed to be about quality of interaction and immediate tactile response isn’t it?
(UPDATE: Despite what these launch images show, the iDrive CinemaScope screen is standard across the range now. Sorry for the mix-up.)
Soak Time and Color
One thought I’ve seen repeated online about this car over the last few days is that give it time, and in a few years once we’ve got used to it, we’ll like it a lot more. I’m not entirely sure I buy into that line of thinking. When you’re designing a car from scratch that is the case; you’re working on something for five years time – you’re supposed to try something new and novel. We called it “soak time”; do something different and then pore over it for a week or two and see if it works. Thing is, you usually know straight away if you’ve done something really good.
Really my main boggle with the new M2 is one that’s easily sorted. It needs the optional turned face alloy wheels (I don’t like black wheels as they hide the spoke pattern, but I get that customers do like them). Secondly the color palette isn’t great. In fact for such an expensive car it’s very limited. Your standard non-metallics are white or something called Zandvoort blue, which is a weak pastel shade that flattens the body work and brings to my mind British Invalid carriages from the past (see above). Yuck.
[Editor’s Note: Hey, that “invalid carriage,” the Harper Invacar, that Adrian chose as an example there was one of my choices for what the Simpson’s “Put it in H” car could be! – JT]
The three optional metallics are black, grey and Toronto Red, which is the one used in all the press shots. Three of these colors are shared with the normal car (white, metallic black and metallic grey), and I think something bolder like Golf Yellow would help a lot. Thundernight Metallic is a sweet purple that you can get on the standard car, and all versions go down the same line, so why isn’t it available on the halo car?
I don’t dislike the new M2, but I’m not bowled over by it either. It’s probably the best looking car BMW currently makes, but that’s really grading on a curve. It’s not the subtly aggressive BMWs of yore – but BMW hasn’t done the loud part quietly for a long time now.
Re the diffuser “I find it hard to believe that it’s contributing much in the way of meaningful downforce looking at the shape of it”.
Laminar air flow won’t stay attached to a surface that’s angled at more than 13 degrees, so if its more than 13 degrees from horizontal it’s not a functional diffuser, it’s a bit of trim.
I’ve worked with a few automotive designers, and the phrase that makes me want run screaming back to hard-core engineering is “lets make it look more functional”.
It’s okay to look functional, as long as IT IS FUNCTIONAL. Honesty in design is everything, which is why I hate hidden rear door handles and why the offset rear plate on the Discovery 5 is such bullshit. If it still had the split rear tailgate then absolutely fine – the offset is functional because it gives you a lower reach in height on one side. But it doesn’t so the offset has no reason to exist beyond a callback to earlier models (where it was functional).
IMO I think I would look much better if they’d get rid of all the lower vents and other eyesores under the grill and F/R bumpers. Just smooth all that out and make them body colored.
As it is looks like several parts fell off.
That’s not really possible these days because of cooling and air intake requirements.
I appreciate these articles. Well done. A good way to approach a subject like car styling. Keep them coming.
I think BMW is heading in the right direction. The new 7 and X7 are not as bad as most people say (in fact, I think they look kind of awesome).
Oh, and I would so hoon the shit out of that 700 and then wash it with soap and a cloth diaper before tucking it into the garage at night.
It’s an adorable little thing isn’t it?
Gonna go out on a limb here and say that the last M-car that captured the ethos (both visually as well as on the track) of the E30 M3 was the 1M, and even that was tainted by the use of forced induction. It was a ‘Hit up the parts bin, Hans!’ design like the original E28 M5 and E30 M3, as opposed to an engineered-from-the-ground-up marketing-segment-grab that (unfortunately) all the other M-cars devolved to in later generations.
BMW fanboys: rEaL Ms DoN’t uSe FoRcEd iNduCtion!
Me: well you all seem to like the 1M.
Best looking car they make? No way. Yes, they are all pretty ugly, but a 3-series (non-M) or 5-series (in any trim) is a lot better looking.
The 5 is not bad, if a little anonymous. The 3 I really don’t like the oversized central opening in the front bumper.
I’m not saying I love the central opening of the 3 or the anonymity of the 5, but overall, they are much more cohesive designs and far better looking that this thing.
Fair, but this is meant to be a bit more aggressive and purposeful.
Yeah, and it simply doesn’t work in my opinion. The 2-series, isn’t a particularly good looking car to start with. Making it more aggressive certainly doesn’t fix it. And besides, I don’t really care for how they made it more aggressive looking.
I don’t think this is great, but it is better than the bucktooth M3 and 4-series. Also better than the M240 with piano black trim and those triangles on the front.
Reading a steady dose of Grassroots Motorsport and Sport Compact Car magazines in the early to mid 2000’s, I would buy this car in a heartbeat. Unfortunately my bank account won’t allow it, In hindsight I probably should have spent more time educating myself and less time procreating.
Well car designers don’t make particularly good money (unless it’s in the US because white collar salaries are generally higher there).
I was initially put off by this car because of how static the front fascia elements are below the upper grille. I agree that the theme up front is a good bit better than the non M cars. I’m glad you also saw that the execution up front could stand to get some more refinement. The car has grown a little on me since the initial photo release. I look forward to seeing it in person.
The M3 rear door shocked me. I hadn’t noticed before as I try to pay little attention to the current M3/M4 goblins. I’m stunned they didn’t cough up the money for new outer sheet metal there. Even frugal ass Mitsubishi did that for my Evo, I’m amazed BMW didn’t for one of it’s marquee performance icons.
Looks better than a lot of the other monstrosities they’re producing.
I can’t put my finger on the why, exactly, but, somehow, the side profile view reminds me of a tiny British sports car in a shed outfit, cobbling stuff together out of fiberglass and the parts bins of actual automakers, then charging 6 figures+ for the result
Yeah, this does have more than a whiff of OEM tuner car about it.
Yep, like a modern-day Ginetta G28.
“Numbers haven’t meant anything to BMW for a long time so I’m just returning the favor”. Hah!
Put a cross bar in that grill and it becomes the M3 300. But I’d still rather have the Chrysler.
I agree here and I think the BMW DESIGN BAD groupthink in enthusiast circles sell’s what the brand is currently offering short. While there are some disasters that are worthy of the scorn they get (The M3/4 series with the buck teeth, the iX, etc) they still sell some conventionally attractive vehicles.
The 3 series outside of the M remains elegant, the 5 series is subtle, the Z4 is an attractive, if conventional roadster and I honestly think the X3 and X4 are some of the better looking cars in their respective classes. I do not understand why the current 2 series is getting so much hate regardless of trim.
I think it’s the most traditional BMW design of the bunch, and apart from being a bit busy on the sporty trims (you raise a really good point about the quad exhaust tips) I don’t see how there’s much to be offended about here. It’s a fine looking car…maybe not mind blowing but compared to what we could have gotten based on the rest of their current designs I find this to be downright pleasant. My only other gripe is that the rear end is a bit bulbous.
I think it’s trendy to hate on BMW design automatically these days. Some of that is earned, but in cases like this I don’t think it is…and I’ll have my eye on an M2 over the next couple of years. Whether or not I can sell the wife on a coupe is a different story, unfortunately…
I think the Z4 has problems when you see it in the flesh. The overhangs are wrong and it’s under wheeled.
Tell the missus I gave you permission to get an M2.
Probably my main thing with this is none of the shapes are friends. The big squares scattered about don’t fit with the curves of the body. The accent lighting inside the headlights don’t fit with the overall shape of the headlights – which also doesn’t fit with the hood shutline, inexplicably. And the taillights don’t fit with anything – I really, really hate the 2-series taillights. I feel like they could get a good looking car with that sheetmetal if they threw out the bumpers and lighting and did something entirely different there.
“None of the shapes are friends” is exactly what I was thinking about this car but couldn’t put into words.
The biggest offender to me is how sharp the angle of the hood bump appears from the side. What else on the car does that mesh with visually?! It looks like one of those old Lego spaceship cockpit windows.
Graphic shapes and feature lines should have a relationship. They should ‘talk to each other’ otherwise the look busy and senseless. The triangle grills on the M Sport and to a lesser degree the base 2 are good examples of this.
Definitely an improvement with those tweaks, though the ugly can’t be easily fixed (still one of their better offerings, at least). That purple and green (on the 3), however, are fantastic! I love my GR86 in Neptune blue, but I’d have either of those other colors in a heartbeat. Even if it would then take me a long time to choose between them.
I’m all black all the time (in keeping with my personal style) but that purple is gorgeous and also an acceptable goth color.
All black, all the time? Do you maintain the paint on your own cars? I’ve had 2 black cars, I will never have another. What a PIA!
Or perhaps you were referring to your favorite sports team?
Haha no. My Range Rover is black on black with black stitching and wood trim. I sought it out specifically because some of the L320 trim choices can be a bit garish.
The Ferrari is red, but I’ll allow that (unsurprisingly there wasn’t a lot of choice).
I don’t maintain my own paint. I’m a great believer in the dignity of other peoples labor.
It’s remarkable how much better your edited rear bumper looks for such a small change, well done! I’ll admit I’m not a fan of the looks overall but it does look better on video than it does in the pictures, I bet it’s totally fine in person
You don’t have to change things much to have a big effect. Sometimes a few mm is all it takes.
I think it is a lot better than what they have been doing for the past several years, especially the grill. The exterior has a bit of Honda meets Pontiac feel to me, or maybe any Japanese car meets Pontiac. That’s not exactly bad to me, but it has an appearance of being a less expensive car than it is, but I can’t really explain why. Maybe it’s that the kidney’s are now on their sides.
I really think the colors and black wheels are what mostly contributes to the slightly cheap look of the thing.
The harder BMW tries, the more their “nostrils” look more like Pontiac every day.
I said a similar comment on another site, where it’s ’70s Pontiac meets ’90s Aston Martin Vantage ‘stache going on. Honestly the front end looks as though they peeled the face off of it and this is what’s underneath a la Captain America villain, Red Skull.
I’m just thrilled they did not go with the gigantic nostrils of the 4-series/M4. These new kidneys are much better than the last few they’ve put out.
Is this confirmation that the enormous nostrils were stupid and will be retired, or are they going to be used on a subset of BMWs or something? Can’t be arsed to go find out on my own, but I would like a “ha-ha” moment at BMW’s expense.
BMW has said that the giant beaver teeth is reserved for their more “exclusive” models. Eg: That’s why you see them in the 4 series but not the 3 series, or why it’s more prevalent in giant SUVs and sedans than in the smaller models.
Is that a stupid justification? Yes. Are they backing away from the beaver look? I doubt it.
I dislike the overall look of this M car less than the rest of the BMW line. But, I really have a weakness for the pastels ( with all that white in them). Maybe because they remind me of some of the ‘50s colors.
I like the Zandvoort blue a lot, and you notice it softens out the unfortunately tortured compound curves.
I love the sort of dove grey ( blued, and pastel ) I have seen on a couple of older Porsches, and BMWs.
I once saw a full length leather coat in that dove grey, and thought it the most amazing look ever.
Yeah, fair enough. I’m not a CMF designer, but I generally don’t like weaker colors, especially on a car like this. But hey, that’s why there are options.
Judging by the fact the press shots are all Toronto Red, I’m guessing the design team thought that was the hero color for the car (ie the shade it looks best in).
I remember when the latest ‘dove gray’ lightly metallic color came out ~2017. I was REALLY taken by it, since it was different, and fits the pastel palette in my mind, even though it is just gray.
I think bringing back pastels with a light metallic would be really nice on sports cars. Not sure about SUV’s since you might want to make them look less bulbous, styling-wise. Darker colors help with that.
Lairyness?!?
From the Cambridge Dictionary:
– behaving in a loud, excited manner, especially when you are enjoying yourself or drinking alcohol:
“The bar was full of lairy, pint-swilling lads.”
TIL.
In all seriousness, as an Autopian reader, allow me to suggest that you may enjoy Project Binky on YouTube.
Not only is it the best car building/modding show anywhere, one which anyone with the slightest bit of automotive engineering interest should love, you will also have the opportunity to learn some fun British words like lairy.
“Thundernight Metallic is a sweet purple that you can get on the standard car, and all versions go down the same line, so why isn’t it available on the halo car?”
These are the sorts of baffling decisions that bother me the most. Cool colors are great, and buyers of higher-end models are more likely to order exactly what they want, so why would you limit the colors so much? Making ugly design decisions is just trying to follow or set trends, but limiting choices arbitrarily isn’t even doing any good.
A production line can only handle a certain number of colors, and in this case I think I worked it out to be ten (all colors across the entire range). So that means only two colors are exclusive to the M, which seems particularly stingy.
The 1 series and 2 series GT (which you don’t get in the US) are available with BMW’s Individual color scheme, which adds about 170 options, for a price. But those cars are built in a different plant, and it’s possible the Mexican plant where the RWD 2s are built doesn’t have that capability (because for custom colors cars have to be pulled off the line to be painted separately before being cycled back onto the line again).
“Toronto Red”?
BMW obviously hasn’t researched sports team colours.
Go Habs, Go!
It’s a great color eh?
To be fair, red is one of the main colors in the logo and branding of the Toronto Raptors, but I would a little surprised if BMW were actually attempting to be relevant to a league as hip and youth-leaning as the NBA.
Well you can’t make it Leafs blue because then it’s the colour of perpetual disappointment.
See also claret and blue, and aqua and orange. Why do I do this to myself?
Haven’t seen an M2 in person, but will say I think BMW has really lost its way, design-wise. You could say “So has nearly everyone else,” but that seems a cop-out. From the photos, the M2 strikes me as pudgy, over-“detailed” and very close to anonymous.
Not being a designer, I can’t say BMW could have successfully evolved the crisp, athletic designs of the past (the OG M3 and the 6-Series coupe come immediately to mind) but I wish they had tried.
I was going to try and work in a line about it being essentially an M3 in a tighter outfit, but I’m not exactly sure how accurate that actually is. It certainly appears to use a lot of M3 hardware.
“Curved screen plopped onto dash” is becoming ubiquitous and will age about as well as motorized seat belts.
It will age poorly, but perhaps slightly less poorly than “tablet slapped onto/into dash.” I’d like to see a shrinking of the tablets/screens and the usual controls (such as audio and climate) returned to physical. I suspect that the curved screen onto dash is more likely to leave space to transition back to physical controls and might stick around a little longer before they decide to shift to a smaller nav/radio display again or a HUD.
This particular implementation of “curved screen plopped onto dash” is coming to all 3/4 series and the 2 series coupe as part of their mid-cycle refreshes. Admittedly looks stupid but apparently works great.
The issue is that screens have to be automotive rated (kinda like flight rated, but not quite as high a standard). This costs a lot of money and lead time, so they have to be amortised over a lot of cars over a long time. This is why we used to get the old ‘my phone gets updated every two years, why can’t in car tech do the same’ whinge. It’s also why screens will be around for a while yet, but pushback is happening and I think we will eventually revert to a mix of hard (physical buttons) and soft (touchscreen) controls.
During my stint working on aircraft cabins I was amused to find out deployable screens on commercial aircraft (usually stuff in business class offerings) had to have a 300lb load capacity. Because some passengers just might use them as an assist grab as they get up out of the seat.
Yes, these are the sorts of things that have to be taken into account that people have no idea about.
A good bit of of my time in interiors is spent protecting people from themselves. Some of it is good, and some is just downright ridiculous.