Since Chris Bangle's re-emergence in the auto industry at the Frankfurt show last fall, he has been sought after for opinion, if only because his views on the state of car design are so entertaining. Automotive News Europe's Doug Bolduc caught up with the former BMW design chief at the Geneva show this month. Here are highlights of what Bangle said about the annual Swiss extravaganza.
Q: Geneva is famous for its supercars. What do you make of them?
A: I'm not going to call them supercars, that is why I refer to them as supercar-ish. Besides Ferrari and McLaren you will find them scattered all around. All chasing the billionaires and all trying to be this kind of latest hot, cool thing that has better performance statistics than anything else. When you look at them, though, they blend into this kind of melange of sameness. As a counterpoint, if you look around here you will find a whole set of real supercars from the 1960s. Every one of them is different. Every one of them made a statement about where cars and design could go.
What is missing from the show?
Do you see how many spaces are taken up by coffee shops? What the hell is this? Wasn't there more car stuff here before? You take out Opel, DS, Mini and whoever else is missing and pretty soon they have space to offer to coffee shops, which is nice, but sorry, it didn't feel that way before. That is missing.