It’s hard to even talk about BMW today without mentioning the grilles. Whether it’s the buck-toothed M3 or instantly recognizable (I’m being generous) XM, the grille is a big point of contention for BMW enthusiasts young and old. Incredibly, the modern incarnation of BMW’s vertically oriented grille began nearly ten years ago, when the G22 4 Series was still in the design stage. And now, we have the origin story.
The Grille That Changed Everything
In what will likely surprise nobody, the now iconic and polarizing grilles are products of the marketing department. Ian Robertson, Sales and Marketing board member for BMW, felt the brand’s bread and butter four-seaters needed “more distinction.” So, when designs were being thrown around sometime in 2017 for the G20 3 Series and second-gen 4 Series, Robertson and former R&D boss Klaus Frohlich started chatting about how to distinguish their car from the competition.
For inspiration, they looked in two places. The first was the current BMW X Series SUVs. Vehicles like the X5 had grilles dwarfing the ones found on smaller cars, like the 3 Series of the time. But sheer size wasn’t enough. “We needed something different for the sportier cars,” he says in Steve Saxty’s “BMW by Design” book. The second place considered was kind of a stroke of genius: the 3.0 CSL Hommage from 2015. The wide and vertically longer grilles were familiar but – as BMW puts it – “tall in citation of the more upright styling of the kidney grille of yesteryear.”
The Large Grille Could Have Ended Up On The 8 Series As Well
The rest is, more or less, history. The 4 Series ended up getting the grille we know today, but it almost wasn’t the only one. According to Robertson, he and Frohlich “got so excited by the idea that we wondered if we could put them on the 8 Series too.” Apparently, the 8 Series was too far along for that change to happen.
BMW’s own press release from 2020 claims the 4 Series’ grille “follows the tradition of legendary BMW coupés and reflects the engine’s high cooling air requirement.” Of course, we know the second half of that is at least a little misleading, since both the four- and six-cylinder engines available in the 4 Series appear elsewhere in the lineup sans vertical grilles. But it’s undeniable that the 4 Series grille – however you feel about it – has a past rooted in BMW heritage. Hey, even the E30 had grilles that were taller than they were wide. And juxtaposition with the 3.0 CSL Hommage – arguably one of BMW’s most enticing concept cars – does bring some newfound appreciation to the beaver teeth.
Robertson speculates that the brand may have lost some 4 Series buyers, but thinks the grilles brought in more new buyers to the fold than they lost. He says he’d do it all again. Personally, I think the BMW 8 Series has never looked better.
