Exclusive Q&A: Adrian van Hooydonk on the new BMW 7 Series

At a special unveil in Munich just over a month ago, BMW showed off its new flagship 7 Series. The sixth-generation model goes on sale on 24 October 2015 boasting self-parking, weight-saving carbon fibre, plug-in hybrid technology and scented cabins. As the embargo on images and information lifts, Car Design News releases its exclusive interview with BMW Group head of design Adrian van Hooydonk, discussing his team’s new more joined-up approach, modern hotel design influences and smelling tests…

Car Design News: Wasn’t it time for a revolution with this sixth-gen 7 Series, given the last one might be considered an evolution?

Adrian van Hooydonk: By BMW i8 standards this is not a revolution. But what I think is special is that this is the first car we’ve done where everything you see, feel or sense has the same design intent. Maybe in the ancient past you would send the exterior team off first and later you would let the interior guys loose and then colour and trim and the detail designers… ‘Okay, you do the sprinkly bits now’. In this car, everybody, including the user interface designers was there from the beginning with the goal of modern luxury. And I think it shows.

CDN: When did the project begin?

Render of the new BMW 7 Series

AvH: It started by assembling a group of designers about four years ago, well before the design competition, to get research on our global customers. We sent them out to the Middle East, US and China to discover modern luxury in terms of hotels, restaurants and customers. We took a bit of a longer approach on this project and shared the resulting design presentation with the technology team so I think there’s a good combination of technology and design on the final car as a result.

CDN: Were bolder exterior designs discussed given its strong rivals?

AvH: We chose not to be too complex at first glance, we wanted it somewhat restrained. That to us, is modern luxury, it’s the same in a modern hotel. We don’t think line work is what matters, it has to have tension and be precise, but it’s what happens between the lines.

CDN: Sure, but there’s a way for a hotel to be elegant and bold? Did you consider more extreme designs?

Working one of several 7 Series clays

AvH: We did four or so clays, but we never choose the one in the ‘middle of the road’. We tend to choose the one that will last the longest. In this category people don’t want the most fashionable thing, they won’t switch in a year. While it pushes our design thinking in terms of the holistic experience, maybe on the exterior it is not opening a new chapter like an i8. There is a time and place for that.

CDN: How has BMW’s approach changed in the last decade?

AvH: Maybe in the past, ‘hi-tech’ in our company meant it went faster than the previous car. This car is still fast, but now hi-tech means much more – it can mean well-being, comfort, a different way of operating the car and even scent. All of those things take engineering. That’s where I think this car will be a milestone. We wanted to offer a seamless experience at a very high level with a few pleasant surprises on top. This car is not ostentatious or about gimmicks…

CDN: Couldn’t offering scent be seen as gimmicky and not very BMW?

AvH: I agree, it was hard to square within the business. BMW comes from a very functional, hardcore engineering and driving aspect, but if you put the customer at the centre of your product, then you can offer such things. I’ve been doing design for a long time and feel comfortable picking one design over another, but in the scent presentation we didn’t know where to look. The team built scent cabins where you open a small door, sniff and think, “Can this be BMW or not?” In so many ways you can go off-course but we tried not to overdo it.

Cabin now comes with eight optional scents

CDN: What should a BMW smell like?

AvH: Airlines do scent well, often putting scent in the cabin in the morning, which makes you feel fresh, like you’ve just showered. Being fresh and focused fits the BMW brand too so we tried to focus on that. Another aspect was well-being and nature but not overpoweringly floral as that’s super-personal. I think we found a way. It’s a first for us. What we didn’t do was the smell of brakes, engines and petrol. Perhaps that’s not right for the 7 Series.

CDN: Was the 7 influenced by the i range?

AvH: Yes, some of the carbon fibre used in the 7 Series comes from the same factory we use for the i brand. In the future we will filter more from what we learned from the i brand into our normal cars.

CDN: Talk to us about this weight-saving ‘carbon core’?

AvH: All the cross-members in the roof contain carbon and the main frame side stampings are made of metal filled with woven carbon tubes inside, which makes the car lighter and stiffer [overall up to 130kg lighter]. While it was being developed I kept an eye on it to see if I could show that carbon – like on the i3 – but we couldn’t, so we put a badge on the B-pillar instead.

CDN: Making the active grilles now visible is interesting too…

AvH: We wanted to reveal the shutters, unlike the current ones which are designed not to be seen. We felt that was a shame as if you talk about Efficient Dynamics it’s nice to show and explain it. We had to build many grille bars that folded in different ways until we found the solution was to hinge the shutters in a new way. They’re gloss black with a chrome tip so the visible amount of chrome doubles or halves [depending on if the shutters are closed or opened].

CDN: How does the self-parking world-first feature work…

AvH: For self-parking you need the bigger key with a colour display that can also tell you how much fuel you have left and where the car is parked. When you find a parking spot too narrow you can hold your finger to the key and it self-parks in and out of perpendicular spaces.

CDN: Will the chrome rocker and air vent be offered in other colours?

Air Breather in black chrome on 7 Series M Sport

AvH: Yes, you can have it in black chrome, called Shadow Line, maybe first on M Sport trims and then filtering down.

CDN: How has the interior changed?

AvH: There is a more horizontal orientation and the IP has got lower. In the previous 7 Series the display was integrated into the dash but here it stands free. We tried to reduce the IP volume so it doesn’t look like a wall. The screen has got bigger and closer to the driver and passenger as it now has touch functionality. That’s new for us.

CDN: You crumbled to outside pressure on that point then?

AvH: It’s not crumbling it’s progress, they can decide how they want to carry out certain tasks. This car is maybe at the crossroads of all these modes – voice control will be better, touch and gesture – and maybe some will not want any of that and stick with the iDrive, but we are not going to tell them what to do. Customers use touch control on a daily basis elsewhere in their lives and some kids grow up having only ever known doing this [he gestures swiping and pressing].

CDN: Did you seek to reduce the real button count too?

AvH: I would like to go beyond this but the engineers keep creating clever new things that can be activated with a button so we have many conversations. If I let every new function have its own button our cars would be like a Boeing 747 by now. But if you leave lights or climate control on ‘Auto’ you never think about them again. I never touch climate beyond one or two degrees up or down. Then I need two more buttons, max aircon, if the car has sat in the sun for a few days or in winter, screen defrost. Done. Three buttons. So we are thinking about integration there.

CDN: There’s some nice interior lighting details too like the large vertical light at the rear door’s hinge. Can you explain more?

B-pillar LED lamp on long-wheelbase cars

AvH: That came out of the idea of looking into every corner of the car to see if we could offer some surprise and delight. Lighting has become integral to what we do and can help create an atmosphere. We worked out that the area behind the B-pillar wasn’t particularly interesting, sometimes you have a coat hook there but not much else, so we came up with this internal light. Do we really need it? No, but the ribs on it have a function to stop the light emitting outside and the same pattern – a light carpet – is displayed on the floor outside when the doors open.