This BMW Concept Corrects One of New Car Design's Worst Trends

BMW is promising a "new class" for late next year, the second time it has used that exact phrase. The first time heralded the company's early Sixties line of sport sedans and compacts. This upcoming second "Neue Klasse" is a complete lineup revitalization that will have BMW building more competitive electric cars on a unique 800-volt architecture. The transformation will eventually reach across cars and sedans of various sizes. But for now, the focus is on a compact sedan and a similarly sized crossover.

Showcased as two concepts, the Vision Neue Klasse, revealed last year, is a generalized look at the brand's future sedans. The larger Vision Neue Klasse X, shown at a recent event in Los Angeles, displays how BMW will evolve its crossovers and SUVs.

The two have clear similarities, like glassy cabins awash in natural light and sharp overhangs that reflect the famous shark noses of BMWs past. One big difference, however, is at the front. Each car has a very different interpretation of how the company's signature kidney grilles translate into a world that... doesn't need grilles at all. The sedan features two wide-set kidneys that stretch across the breadth of the car, wrapping up dual headlights represented by diagonal LED strips on either side. The SUV goes more traditional, with smaller, thin, centered kidneys as on the original New Class, flanked by housings that integrate the headlights.

As BMW Designworks LA CEO Julia de Bono confirmed to Road & Track at the Vision Neue Klasse X's American debut late last week, that difference in face design will carry over to the finished products. The sedan face will be used on sedan body styles and the X face will be used on SAVs, BMW-speak for "Sport Activity Vehicle." That's SUVs and crossovers to everyone else.

"What we want to highlight with a sedan is always a certain width of the car, the car has to stand well on its wheels," said de Bono. "We do that by giving it width in the face as well as giving it shoulder over the wheels. With an SAV, we want to have a certain kind of presence, a certain kind of ruggedness in its appearance. You do that by highlighting the vertical, and at some point that evolves into a certain kind of look, and that's the look we, after many many models, we felt right with it."

The Los Angeles debut of the Vision Neue Klasse X is a major moment for BMW, which U.S. market's love of premium crossovers early and profited off the opportunity. De Bono's Designworks LA office plays a big part in designing these crossovers that will become so important in America, and many of these products will later come to life at the Spartanburg, South Carolina factory the company has operated for 30 years. That facility builds all of BMW's X models from the X3 up for the whole world. The future of BMW SAV design may be bigger news in America than in Munich.

When that moment arrives, expect the Vision Neue Klasse X to be a replacement for the iX3 offered in other markets. Similar cars built on the platform should be sold in other sizes, and all of them should share this general design language. If you despise the look of the existing iX, the Vision Neue Klasse X is a promise that future BMW EV crossovers will not look like, well, that.