This Is Why Maverick Designer Chris Bangle Wants To Radically Rethink Car Design

In the wake of the pandemic, as the world went into shutdown mode, I received an email from Chris Bangle. It contained his polemic on the future of car design. Written originally alongside his architect son Derek for an article published in “L'Automobile” magazine, this is a compelling critical look at the discipline in the dawn of autonomous electric transport. The Bangles argue that, on the whole, mainstream car design is not challenging form language radically enough — that what is being designed and produced does not reflect the spirit of our times. They say it is a missed opportunity, concluding:

“We remix the same flavors since the 60s: dynamic, elegant, premium, sexy, feminine, masculine, harmonious, sporty; words that lose significance with every passing day. Car design can be more; it can reflect the ‘paradoxical’ nature of our society, the unresolvable ‘ambiguity,’ the ‘irrational superimposition,’ the ‘uncertain duality’ and the constant state of ‘becoming’ of our lives — and in embracing these words create a new conception of beauty, of the dynamic, and of elegance…

“Car design needs a new way of seeing now like architecture did half a century ago. Sure, we are the dreamers, but ‘dreams plus truth’ is the formula to overcome resistance to change. How can we car designers truly create if we refuse to look in the mirror? Look at car design today: does it reflect all we are?”

In his former role as BMW Group’s design director and his current position running Chris Bangle Associates in Italy, Bangle has never been one to shy away from controversy. Our interviews over the years have been marathon conversations — never-ending and continuing where they left off no matter the intervening years. Having mulled over his declaration — and with a thirst to discuss the true possibilities of car design — I arranged a video call.

Nargess Banks: In your document, you compare today to the 1960s – a period of fear, upheaval, complexity and contradictions. Then, a group of architects and urban planners led by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown challenged the conservative modernist establishment and made change happen. You make a case for car designers today, who live in similar dogmatic times within their sphere, to find new ways of seeing that respond to our world and our needs. Can car designers today be these radical thinkers?

Chris Bangle: Perhaps the question is more: “Is anyone asking them to be?” Now you are shifting gears to the reasons behind change in design; we would argue that to stay relevant, they must.

But how?

By finding the zeitgeist. The Mustang represented the spirit of the 1960s, and the driving license reflected its time. Are they the zeitgeist of today? No. Driving license applications are continuously falling. We are in a post-truth era. The public has lost confidence in the “best intentions” of car companies through such news as the diesel scandal. And instead of a maintained outrage, the crime slid into the bin of all that is irrelevant and uncared about.

Then there is this idea that the electric car will solve all environmental concerns and turn a profit as before. It is the perfect storm and our chance to change the car radically. And to do so, we must flip the car upside-down and turn it inside-out. I presented these ideas to a group of automotive suppliers at a recent speech in Turin.

Why should suppliers be the instigators of change? What is in it for them?

To make money. Suppliers are in car manufacturers’ pockets, and their apple slices will get thinner and thinner. They must get with the zeitgeist to get a bigger slice — this is where the money flows. You don’t do this by simply sticking an app in a car and calling it “smart.” This is where we can learn from the Facebooks of the world. These guys didn’t just take something that connects people and make it “smart” but gave it emotion. They have created a highly emotive connection — that’s the connection to the zeitgeist.

Are you proposing for the car world to fundamentally change how it thinks and operates?

There is this concept of “you… but as the inverse of you”. We don't need to make anti-cars, but we could make their inverse. How? The car is essentially about transportation from A to B. But A to B is only 10% of the whole experience — there is another 90% to tap into. Do you remember REDS, the car we designed two years ago? It was based on this 90/10 concept to emotionally connect with you in a completely different manner. The car looks different because it works differently, and because it works differently, it looks different and gives you a different emotional connection.

I need a bit more explanation…

REDS is not “you”— as in the “A-to-B 10% of-the-time-you”, but the inverse “you”: The you of the A times and the B times doing all those other things we do with cars in that 90% of the time. These are moments of talking, chilling, diaper-changing, watching a film, eating, sleeping, cuddling — lots and lots of moments when the car is your friend and protector, shelter and hideaway. All these are powerfully emotional touch-points, experiences that, if the form allows it, can be the real emotional bond between user and product. This is why form should — no, must — follow emotion.

I like that, but how does this work in the context of the auto suppliers you talked to?

Because they hold the key to the emotion, if they keep telling car companies: sorry, we cannot do things differently and be inventive, and that change from the current paradigm is impossible. In this case, they will not create conditions other than now — a degrading slide to a thinner and thinner slice of the apple. When profits go, budgets for research and experimentation — especially for car design — will get marginalized. Radical change requires another approach.

Are we setting our own limitations on releasing emotions because the design practice needs to be rethought?

Yes, this is where we’re at. With electric cars, it is a missed opportunity. The suppliers are co-defendants. The car manufacturer will say I don’t have a supplier to make this new shape for me, while the supplier will blame the maker for not asking for something radical. Neither wants to pay for fundamental research — I mean “true” design research.

This is taking me back to projects like the genuinely radical GINA - the cloth-covered shape-changing vehicle you worked on for years and years while at BMW. It completely deconstructed the conventional motor car.

Yes, it needs to be research that takes the car apart conceptually and allows a fresh approach in putting it back together again — better. At BMW, in those days, they put a lot of research money into these projects, and it paid off. Sometimes in pure form, sometimes in new manufacturing technologies, and almost always in inspiring starting points for other innovations; in many ways, much of that work went into our products.

In fairness, a great deal of research is happening at car companies, although I cannot quantify how much of this goes strictly towards blue-sky thinking in the way of GINA. However, I wonder if a fundamental, radical rethink is impossible in a system that is ultimately about pushing sales. Going back to our comparison with architecture, much of the revolutionary theories and work from the 60s were in social housing and civic projects.

It’s a question of priorities, of whether shareholder value, in the long run, is better served by keeping the commercial end they have now, and when it stops, it stops. Or it involves looking ahead of the train and seeing where the track is going. This way, the engines you build and the designs you do now work better in the future for the future. Ultimately, it depends on the management culture.

You say radical change requires another approach. What would be the methodology?

Our car and product design philosophy is based on “objectomy.” It means thinking through the mind of a product and seeing the world as the object sees itself. The concept is so right for car design because, at its heart, that is how Car Design – in capital letters — has always wanted to operate if we would only let it do so.

This sounds logical, but how do you propose reaching this concept?

The classic approach to design is from the user-centric side, which is great for problem-solving. With this “objectomy” you don’t look at the world only like that but rather consider the object itself. You look at how the object feels about its abilities, potentials, and even limitations, what it wishes it could do and what it wishes people would ask it to do. Out of this, you get a car that is more than an automobile — a personality, a character. A set of functions won’t bring you the same level of emotions that a character will.

Would this hypothetical car, designed to the theory of “form follows emotion,” then also have an obligation to share this emotion with society – be part of nation-building, have civic duties, perhaps? I’m thinking of those 60s rebel architects who have similar thoughts. Plus, if you think about it, if the word “emotion” is replaced with “human relations” or “society” even, the argument becomes one at the center of progressive political thought…

To answer your first question, why not? Certainly, as we move further away from the joy of personal ownership and become an experience-driven society. At the same time, the digitalized world gives us more opportunities than ever before — all these types of connections become possible. The car design experience still feels far away from that.

Car designers today may say that their forms follow emotion, but they are following an old, has-been emotion of the petrol heads of the last century: the emotion of speed. It’s fine — sometimes, but it’s not the emotion that will sustain us, our customers, or our world. If driving fast or looking like “driving fast” is the only emotional bond we have to offer our customers and fans, then we are creating with blinders on.

Watch this video for an insight into the work and thinking at Chris Bangle Associates and to see the making of the studio’s first animated movie, SHEARA. Bangle discusses how animation has helped form the philosophy “objectomy” - discussed in the interview above — as a powerful tool for designers to create emotional connections between their products and users.

See further discussions with Chris Bangle as he makes an urgent case for completely rethinking car design here.