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Adrian van Hooydonk is Dutch and very tall. Dressed in a fitted black velvet suit his appearance is thoughtful; his look intense, possibly even a little dark. We caught up with the new head of BMW design at the Paris Show.

sharing the same vision: Adrian van Hooydonk replaces Chris Bangle as head of design at BMW

Chris Bangle is a hard act to follow. He is an animated man who knows how to express his most inner thoughts and feelings clearly as perhaps only Americans can. Van Hooydonk is quite the opposite. It takes time and a little effort to warm this Dutchman up and to dig deeper into his inner soul. What's beneath, though, isn't that dissimilar to Bangle's, after-all this is the man who developed the exterior design of the current 6 and 7 Series, as well as drew ACV30, the first Mini concept.

BMW has been extremely busy lately challenging and redefining the whole notion of premium car design. The journey which started aggressively with the 7 Series is continuing to take form and van Hooydonk is very much involved in this process. He says that his role now is to put the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together.

With the 7 Series the carmaker realised that it made sense to keep its cars highly recognisable as BMWs. "The way society is developing there is the need to have cars with more personal identities," he says. Nowadays premium product shoppers are a much pickier bunch. "They don't just want to buy a BMW at this price-tag -- they can probably afford any of them -- they want to pick a specific one. People shop across the board," says the designer. To reflect this, the company needed to give each of its products a more personal identity, all the while retaining the family link.

van Hooydonk working on the 7 Series

From 1 to 7

The 1 Series is at the very bottom-end of the BMW spectrum. Bellow this is the very successful Mini so there is no point competing in a lower segment. "The 1 Series completes the spectrum between 7 and 1," says van Hooydonk confirming that there will not be a 4 Series.

There are obvious design features that tie the 1 and the 7 together. "The length and proportions may be different, but they are highly recognisable as part of the same family," says the designer. At the front-end there are recognisable similarities in the grille and the headlamps. "If you look at the side glass, you will notice that the top curve is a flowing line that is really one line, whereas in the past it used to be three or four lines," notes van Hooydonk. This flowing aspect gives both cars an almost coupé like feel, even though they have four-doors which adds an element of sportiness and elegance, says the designer. Inside, too, certain elements tie the cars together.

The differences emerge when you look at the body side. The 1 Series belongs to a class that in terms of drivetrain concepts and layout has remained the same. BMW entered this class with rear-wheel drive which means it is an entirely different driving experience that requires a completely new package. "It handles differently, it is a lighter and more agile drive," says van Hooydonk. "As we were the first to do this in this segment we really needed to show this, inside and out." Therefore the body side is highly sculpted. The broad shoulder line and line beneath create tremendous tension. "This shows a lot of dynamics," he adds.

The 7 Series on the other hand, isn't the kind of car where you need to demonstrate the dynamics. "That is why there is sculpture in the 7 Series, but on the body side, on the surfaces, this is less pronounced," says the designer.

The 7 Series went straight to number-one in markets like China, especially with the top-of-the-range models. Elsewhere the car is selling very well, much better than the previous model. The car is up for a facelift soon, though the designer cannot reveal anything about the design saying only: "you'll see it and we can then talk again."

Designing cars

For a designer inspiration is everywhere, says van Hooydonk, in travelling, in architecture as well as product design. "We work on products that are not going to come out three to five years from now. This is what I like about the job," he admits. "The products that we work on now will be on the market for about eight years, therefore the design has to be valid for this period."

Van Hooydonk has come to Munich via DesignworksUSA, the BMW-run design studio in sunny California, where he was president for four years and from where he designed not just cars, but trains, planes and a host of other products including Nokia's Communicator, the first in its kind to have a large screen and a complete qwerty keyboard. The Dutchman isn't new to BMW either. He started work in the main design studio having been spotted whilst at Swiss art school back in 1992.

Designworks, he says, was an important period for him as was his past training as an industrial designer and engineer. Incidentally he used to run his own product design business in Amsterdam. "BMW is one of the only companies that participate in the design of other products. Lots of big name companies like Nokia and Sonny come to us. They acknowledge that BMW can turn a sketch into a product, but more importantly it has the expertise of designing a range of products whereby all of them are able to express the brand values really well. That is one of the big beliefs at BMW," he adds firmly.

When they need a design language many companies design themselves into an ally. "The brand identity becomes a stamp that you put on the car in the last minute. I think BMW has shown that it is not necessarily done like that," says van Hooydonk.

BMW may have its roots in Germany, but it is actually a very global company not just in terms of sales, but manufacturing. "We are being sold all around the world, are cars are being produced all around the world and our products are being designed by people of all kinds of nationality," says van Hooydonk. "I think most people from around the world see us as a European brand. They may not know exactly what this means, but I guess that something there appeals to them."

So how do you design a European car, I ask. "That is a good question," says van Hooydonk, although he doesn't think people necessarily buy BMWs because they want a European brand, rather they want a BMW.

The customer is much harder to pigeonhole these days. Several years ago you knew how to market a person by simply looking at where they lived and what they did. Shopping patterns have changed since. "Before you either lived a premium lifestyle or you didn't, but today you don't have to live a premium lifestyle in order to own certain premium products."

BMW is focusing hard on what makes a premium product that is relevant in today's society. Rolls Royce, which operates under the BMW Group umbrella, is easy to associate with premium, but BMW has to do a slightly different job in fulfilling this segment. Van Hooydonk explains: "In BMW products there is a certain amount of craftsmanship and precision. It is about living up to the brand's promise in all aspects and creating a product that embodies what the brand stands for. We shouldn't have to do a whole lot of arm waving, instead our cars should show what we mean," he says.

Translating emotion into a brand

"First you must have sculpture," says van Hooydonk. With sculpture there is movement in the surface. We believe that sculpture evokes emotion in a modern brand. With sculpture you want to walk up to it, touch it and get a feel for it. We may have trained eyes, but sometimes we need to stroke our hands over a surface to be more precise." Bangle speaks passionately about how technology has enabled design to move forward by allowing metal to be manipulated to create the sculpture that evokes emotion.

By looking at BMW cars you should be able to tell that these cars were made to drive. Even when they are stationary they should look like they are on the move. "We want people to see our products as not just beautiful cars, but to think: 'where is the key, I want to have a go at this'. We want to evoke an emotional reaction. We want people to stop in their tracks when they see our new products, walk up to them and almost touch them. That is the emotional reaction that we need.

"A BMW car needs to be more than just a sum total of solutions because this is not why people buy it, the designer notes," he adds.

A love-hate relationship

Van Hooydonk and his team are aware of the attention they are receiving from rival carmakers. "In a way that can only be a complement," he admits. "They are trying to figure out what it means for them. In the meanwhile we are skipping ahead and cannot worry about it too much." BMW needs to figure out what it wants to achieve and find a way of doing this.

The designer thinks there are a lot of interesting psychological elements involved. When someone tries to break away from the pack, the first reaction by others is to be negative. "That is simply a side of human nature," he says. "What may be disconcerting to the rest of the pack is that we have been successful in breaking away. All the new cars we have brought out have sold more than the previous lot, so now the rest of the pack is looking on enviously."

He is aware that what BMW is doing may not work for other brands. The carmaker is not pretending that it has the answer for everyone and it is not trying to convert anyone.

"Design evolves, people evolve," he admits. "What remains the same is that BMW has always been a company that is at the forefront of technology. Consequently it has made sense for BMW design to also be forward looking and we feel that this is relevant in the context of today's society.

"Part of your role as a designer is to add something new to the world," he says. "If you can make something new it can create a little bit of hope in the world. When you watch the news you see that there is little out there, but when you see good design you feel that there is some energy left." Maybe it is the years spent in California, or working alongside Bangle that has made van Hooydonk such an optimist. Or perhaps it simply comes down to the fact that he is making the cars that other designers can only dream of in their advanced studios.