Agreed Dr John. Beemers at the moment are blandly ok. The Bangle era cars really threw a cat amongst the pigeons and are not well liked by Beemer fans as far as I can see. Funny thing is that Pierre Terblanche at Ducati replaced the 748/916 masterclass (by Tamburini I think) with the 749/999 which was a complete design change because radical change was necessary, apparently. This change was was reminiscent of the changes introduced by Bangle at BMW. The result was not very good at all and Ducati went back to the original design (but subtly different) for the 848/1098 to right the ship again resulting in acclaim and increased sales. While I am well aware of the need to move things on particularly if a well loved design has been updated too many times, radical change is a risk. Back to Bangle. Interestingly, he designed a Fiat Coupe before he moved to Germany that was 'in your face' to put it mildly yet a huge success at the time. Go figure...Cheers Steve