Opportunities lost at Geneva show, says Chris Bangle

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.

Did anything related to autonomous cars impress you?

Autonomous, unfortunately it appears to be being driven ... into a set of predefined presumptions. We just assume that if I show empty room in a car and say that the seats turn around inside of it you will assume that this is how the car would be in the future. That doesn't say anything about how people really interact with their vehicles.

Your overall feeling about the show?

In general, I don't want to be down on cars or design. I see potential. It is possible to show more of that. I am sometimes a bit surprised that opportunities are not taken and that is not good.

What gives you hope?

Some of it comes from the brands and their design groups. Look at Lexus [which debuted its UX subcompact crossover at the show] as an example. Here is a brand and design group that says, 'We are going to start with an idiosyncratic direction and we are going to stay on this until we hammer it into something.' It has taken them years but they are actually creating something out of it. At least what you're seeing there is a commitment toward revitalizing a brand through a strong design statement, not a predictable one. Now they are offering you excitement, emotion and passion.