Look at how fairly I covered the BMW iX when it debuted in November of 2020. I didn’t even mention that face in my headline!:
Hell, my conclusion paragraph was rather mild, too!: I’d just like to point out at that readers were not so kind. Here are the first few comments on my article:
Wow those are hilarious. My favorite is “Bangle looking like Michelangelo right now.” So good! Anyway, I was fairly nice on that initial article, but then came a weird marketing campaign, and I just had to land a little jab:
Here’s one of my main points in that article about BMW’s seemingly-defensive new catchphrase “What’s your reason not to change?” and specifically its use of “OK Boomer”: Someone on Twitter answered BMW’s new catchphrase with pure comedic genius: Dismissing that demographic with the phrase “OK, Boomer” seems like a questionable call to make, especially for a luxury automaker
And BMW responded! “In order to go new ways you sometimes have to try new looks” was the brand’s response to “Because I don’t want to drive a slit eyed Allegro with squirrel teeth.” Bold on BMW for responding, there. The right move? I don’t know. I did write about it, so perhaps! Here’s a bit more from that article in which I criticized BMW’s defensive marketing/PR strategy: After all of that — after the vicious criticism and BMW’s many attempts to stop the bleeding — time, the decider of many controversies on this earth, has seemingly sided with…BMW! Here’s another: But the truth is: It’s always easier to find a reason not to. It might not be the best time for you right now, or perhaps you find yourself in the wrong place. You might think that technology still hasn’t reached its peak, or that the design looks strange. And another: Domagoj Dukec Head of BMW Design […] Adrian van Hooydonk Senior Vice President BMW Group Design Obviously, this is not an opinion shared by everyone, but as someone who was initially critical, I’m perhaps less inclined to admit this than others: The iX looks quite nice in person. I didn’t think this could be possible, even after a businessman at the German Car of the Year event in Germany told me this after having purchased his own — but it turns out that he was right. You know who else was right? Autopian cofounder Jason Torchinsky, who wrote this way back in September of 2021: d [Editor’s Note: I stand by this still. This is one of those cars that just works better in person than in pictures. None of the critiques are really wrong, they just don’t seem to matter as much when you’re standing next to the thing. – JT] I say this because I recently spotted an iX in the Ace Hardware parking lot, and I thought it looked great in person — sharp, futuristic, sleek. I’m into it, especially in this color:
I’d initially planned to toss this article into the trash, as our very own expert designer, Adrian Clarke, threatened me with things too diabolical to even mention, but I recently spotted this tweet from a car photographer I follow in Twitter, and now I feel like I’m less alone, here. Plus, I’m hoping Adrian doesn’t see this article:
— JC (@jcorriv35) January 17, 2023 Is the world coming around to the iX? To those of you who’ve seen one in person — how are you feeling these days about Munich’s flagship electric SUV? [Designer’s Note: Hi, it’s Adrian Clarke, The Autopian’s in-house car designer. Nice try, David. No way you were publishing this without me noticing. Readers, I think all this worrying about moving has reformatted David’s head, rewriting the bit that controls the eyesight. I mean, I know he wears glasses but I had assumed as he can drive his optical cortex was functioning somewhat, but it appears not. There’s so much wrong with the appearance of the iX it’s hard to know where to direct the spleen juice first. Remember when you were little and tried on your dad’s suit? That’s what the body of the iX is like. Flabby and oversized and creased in all the wrong places. There’s competing shapes fighting each other all over the place, the wheel arch flats are stolen from a completely different car making it look under wheeled and the C pillar is all wrong. There’s corners where there should be curves and the whole thing shrieks of inconsistency inside and out. The color ways are bad, the wheels are terrible and there is not one thing I can find about this eyesore that I like. Put the entire production run into a burlap sack and chuck it into the Danube so no-one should ever have to gaze upon the horror ever again. -AC]. I’m not surprised Torchinsky doesn’t hate it, but he loves loves loves ugly vehicles. The BMW is the same. It’s also ugly as sin but people will get used to it. That doesn’t mean it isn’t ugly. It just means people adjust to the ugliness. Then in 30 years we will wonder what on earth we were smoking It’s still absolutely bloody awful. Only redeeming factor is that there really is a LOT of ugly new cars out there, so seen in traffic, the iX is just a drop of ugliness in a flood of ugliness. But I’d bet that if someone with actual ability were to ‘Shop a grille and lights from, say, a 2010 BMW it wouldn’t look too bad. The “face” makes everything look terrible. BMW says the design is emotional. If we can’t use disgust as an emotion, then I’ll go with angry. Because form used to follow funtion at BMW, and the function was magical. Now I just wish their cars would disappear. I was blown away by the test drive. The suspension is perfection and the car is built like a tank. The interior is luxurious. Only negatives I can point to are the lack of frunk and the bizarre gear selector. I own a Model Y which has a terrific drivetrain but subpar suspension, software, and build quality. I would switch to an iX in a heartbeat if I could afford it. I was barely able to afford the Model Y and the iX is just too pricey for me. Their recent (last 2 decades) sharp decline in engineering (trading reliability for cheapness, like forgetting how to make valve seals and cooling systems, and turning main bearings and turbos into consumables) along with the commitment to nausea-inducing hideousness have insured I won’t own one of their cars again. With so many actually horrible cars out there, if you offered me the iX as a company car (please do!), I’d be really happy. If I wanted to go electric with my own money, I have no idea what I’d do. Maybe the Ioniq 6? That has some real first gen Mercedes CLS vibes about it, which was my dream car as a teen. But man, speaking of cars which look better in person, I just saw the new Civic in pearl white and wow, that thing has some presence! As for the car: eh. It’s definitely designed to be seen in detail — up close and while stopped in traffic, mostly — so there are lots of small flourishes that draw the eye (it’s the chevrons in the head-on view for me). And from the rear 3/4 view, it’s not bad at all. No, it’s not a “cohesive” design, but I would argue it’s not meant to be. It’s a car for short attention spans.
