Chris Bangle may be best known for his work at BMW (for better or for worse), but before his tenure there, he was working over at Fiat. During his time there, he served as chief designer for a uniquely styled front-wheel-drive coupe.
That car, known as the Fiat Coupé, was notable for the angular exterior design that Bangle penned, and …
Honestly, im a fan. I love the interior, too. I still prefer the Alfa built on the same platform (or a contemporary Mitsubishi FTO), but i wouldn't kick one of these out of my driveway.
Semi-related? E60 BMW taillights are some of my favorite taillights in history. These ones here are...not.
I once saw one of those in Monaco and was completely baffled as to what it was. The styling is a thumbs down for me.
Disgusting
Fugly. Looks like a mangled EV-1.
The interior looks nice though.
wow, you really chose some nasty pics that make a sleek and stylish car look awful.
The biggest issue with the fiat coupe' was the 5 cylinder turbo.. Yes, it was the most powerful of the breed, you needed to pull the engine to do the cambelt. There was just no room between the front of the engine and the side of the car to do the work. the 16v engine (same as the Lancia Delta and based off of the beloved Fiat twincam) was much easier to work on, lighter, and could be tweaked to supply the same power.
Oh, good grief! All the warning signs were there, and still BMW made the horrible mistake of hiring the man. What were they thinking?
mad_machine (Forum Supporter) said:wow, you really chose some nasty pics that make a sleek and stylish car look awful.
All I see is a goofy Sunfire
I liked it in Gran Turismo 2. Looks better than most of the BMWs he's known for.
The yellow one mad_machine posted sure looks better than the blue ones up top.
But it still suffers heavily from Bangleism: a layer of weird, fussy detailing failing to hide fundamentally bad proportions.
Yuck. Luckily it looks like a car you wouldn't mind breaking down.
My first thought was it looks like an EV1.
I'm a big fan, but do think it wears some colors and angles better than others.
I do agree that the contemporary Alfa GTV would be my pick though.
For some reason my mind went to Saturn SC2 but I can't articulate why. Those taillights are something.
randman2011 said:Duke said:The yellow one mad_machine posted sure looks better than the blue ones up top.
But it still suffers heavily from Bangleism: a layer of weird, fussy detailing failing to hide fundamentally bad proportions.
That's it. I could never put my finger on what is so unfortunate about the Coupe styling. Highlighting that it was the work of Chris Bangle makes so much sense, and you're right. The proportions, front and rear, are just bizarre.
That's exactly what plagued all the Bangle-era BMW sedans (the Z4 wasn't bad): The fundamental proportioning was just lumpy and misshapen. All the "flame surfacing" and "zeppelin ribs" and "Bangle butt" and other weird pig-lipstick he applied just couldn't hide those baked-in flaws.
Reminds me of a bad kit car from the 80's
Lower it a couple inches and I really like it. It is my favorite car of his! Which is saying very little.
Bangle took over at a difficult time for the lead design role as the preceding BMWs were very good looking and had distinct connections to their respective 'series' linage. There was not anywhere obvious to go with an incremental approach so he blew it up. I get that decision and he succeeded wildly- but very few attractive individual BMWs have emerged and I do not see a cohesive language coming together. He has been gone 10 years and Adrian Hooydonk has not managed to herd the smattering of approaches into anything palatable unless 'Vaguely Brutish' is ones cup of tea.
Clarkson told us it would be a good police car, so it’s got that going for it 
You guys keep posting the same car in different colours, from different angles, saying it looks better. You are not helping your side of the argument.
All the colour in the world won't hide that wheel well and the body line running through it.
The interior, yes. The exterior, no. That said, I feel that Bangle rescued BMW from a pretty boring design language, and for the most part I'm a fan.
The wheel arches are hideous, and it has the face of a Daimler SP250, formerly the worlds ugliest car. The tail would be OK on an econobox though.
Yuck. That's all I have to say on that question.
slowbird said:I liked it in Gran Turismo 2. Looks better than most of the BMWs he's known for.
Came in here to say that. I thought it looked great on the game but less so in reality really
Duke said:randman2011 said:Duke said:The yellow one mad_machine posted sure looks better than the blue ones up top.
But it still suffers heavily from Bangleism: a layer of weird, fussy detailing failing to hide fundamentally bad proportions.
That's it. I could never put my finger on what is so unfortunate about the Coupe styling. Highlighting that it was the work of Chris Bangle makes so much sense, and you're right. The proportions, front and rear, are just bizarre.
That's exactly what plagued all the Bangle-era BMW sedans (the Z4 wasn't bad): The fundamental proportioning was just lumpy and misshapen. All the "flame surfacing" and "zeppelin ribs" and "Bangle butt" and other weird pig-lipstick he applied just couldn't hide those baked-in flaws.
flaws yes, but that was typical for a front driver from that era. I do think maybe the trunk was a bit too truncated, but I prefer the looks of the front.
Streetwiseguy said:You guys keep posting the same car in different colours, from different angles, saying it looks better. You are not helping your side of the argument.
All the colour in the world won't hide that wheel well and the body line running through it.
This exactly. Look at the profile -- it's as if the designer said "Man, I really need to add some excitement here" so he just cut some slashes across the wheel wells on the clay model then said, "Done!"
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