Why don't I like the 6 design? Let me count the ways....
The aforementioned rear-shelf... where you want the 6 to be masculine, the way the lines droop around the tail are quite emasculating. The shelf itself is unobjectionable... what they did to the rear lights to
emphasize it, is.
The way that hood cut line doesn't square up to the bumper line. I know that's to break up the visual weight of the front bumper and the hood, to keep either from looking too massive, and it works, but it creates an uncomfortable intersection of lines at the headlights that just never gets resolved.
The headlights themselves. It's the reverse of monocle eye, it's droopy eye.
The lower grille. Mazda is starting to do this... going all "happy face" on us. It's true that people automatically associate car fascias with faces... which is why mono headlights don't work, why the grille is still in the middle, and why headlight desigh has remained rather conventional, over the years. But I don't understand why car desgners now assume that people want cars that look like they're half-assed drunk and giggly happy at the same time.
And the BMW 6-series does them one worse by being cross-eyed, as well.
AND echo homeforsummer: how they got such a sleek, low-slung car to look so fat is astonishing.
Now compare it to the Z4:
With the Z4, they took more liberties with the shape, and they managed to make those radical design cues make sense.
There's an electric, almost sensual flow to the lines... flame-surfacing works here because it's actually put into context. The headlights actually work.
About the only criticisms I have are the unresolved issues with the rear end (cured in the coupe) and the BMW grille itself. One wonders how much better the Z4 would look with a Jaguar XK grille, instead...
The problem with the design direction of BMW is not the radical-ness of Bangle's ideas, but the inability of his design team to implement them in a meaningful way. The new 3 is a step in the right direction, a tightrope act between adventure and restraint, and the new X5 looks great. I just hope they do something to resolve the front ends of the 5- 6- 7- and the sides of the 1- series for the next model change.
You do know that Ford started the "Edge" design path in about 1996 when they first showed the Ka?... When was the first Bangle Bee-Em again? Cetainly wasn't the mid nineties... The only Bangle car I can think of from that long ago was the Fiat Coupe, and there's not the slightest bit of influence in any Ford from that car.
