The New BMW 5-Series Nearly Had A Huge Grille, But It Looked Too Much Like The 7-Series

It has doubtless warmed the cockles of countless enthusiasts’ hearts that the caller BMW 5-Series does not person a large, vertical kidney grille, similar the 1 seen connected the caller 7-Series. That’s not for deficiency of trying connected the portion of Domagoj Dukec, BMW’s caput of design.

“We tried vertical besides successful the plan phase, but adjacent if you past bash antithetic headlamps, it begins to sneak up connected the 7,” Dukec precocious told Road & Track. “So, we discussed it with immoderate radical and past said: no, let’s support them further apart. It was a precise deliberate determination to spell that way, and not travel the 7.”

He added that the much horizontally-oriented grille lends itself to the sportier and much elegant tone of the 5-Series. Indeed, erstwhile they saw the front-end of the caller sedan with the wider grille it present has, the designers agreed that it looked much appropriate. Dukec is speedy to clarify that the determination didn’t travel due to the fact that of the mixed reactions to the XM and the 7-Series, though.

Read: 2024 BMW 5-Series Finally Revealed, $84,100 All-Electric i5 M60 Gets Top Billing

“I’ve ever said erstwhile I was asked astir wherefore the kidneys are truthful big, wherefore this oregon that is. I said, ‘Look, these are peculiar models’,” helium explained. “They person expressive customers, they person status-oriented customers. So hold until you spot the 3-Series and 5-Series cars, with which radical are looking for different things.”

After selling the 5-Series for 50 years, BMW is beauteous wide astir who is buying them, and what they are looking for. Dukec said that the sedan’s buyers are blessed astir their presumption successful life, but don’t similar to amusement off.

A 2024 BMW 5 Series with the larger grille of the 7 Series (Illustration Thanos Pappas / Carscoops)

“They privation a car that, of course, expresses their achievements and so, but successful a antithetic way,” helium said. “A car to which neighbors accidental ‘oh, nice!’, but not reasoning ‘whoa, he/she has truly achieved it’.”

The grille wasn’t the lone situation for the caller 5-Series. Dukec admits that figuring retired however to incorporated the batteries for the all-electric i5 into the plan without making it look precariously gangly was difficult.

“This car has a really, truly bully side view. The lone happening is that you beryllium higher. That’s not truthful casual to handle, due to the fact that you privation to beryllium successful the car, and not connected the car,” said Dukec. “That’s the biggest challenge, not conscionable for america designers, but besides the engineers.”

Ultimately, his boss, caput of BMW Group design, Adrian van Hooydonk is precise blessed with the enactment the squad has done. He praised the caller car’s proportions, describing it arsenic “long, elegant, and sporty.”