Design is a big deal at BMW. Iconic cues like kidney grilles, Hofmeister kinks, and quad-headlights once dominated every model in the lineup. But those days are mostly in the past — that’s what we learned in a quick interview with three of the biggest BMW design names in the game today. We join Adrian van Hooydonk, Maximilian Missoni, and Oliver Heilmer to learn a little bit more about the state of design at BMW in 2025.
Say Goodbye to “Classic” BMW Design; Supposedly, You Won’t Miss It
Adrian van Hooydonk likely needs no introduction, but we’ll do it anyway. He’s BMW’s Design Director and has been for over fifteen years. So, he’s a guy who knows something about what “classic BMW design” looks like. When asked whether or not we’ll still have BMWs with “classic” design, Adrian didn’t mince words: “No, we won’t. Neue Klasse is a starting point for a change in our form language,” he said. “Not only the electric cars, but also the combustion cars.”
In terms of design, Adrian feels the only way to evolve is to continue “moving forward.” And he thinks Neue Klasse is a big jump. “You will see in Neue Klasse design something very new, I believe. Almost like we’re skipping one generation, jumping one generation. That’s how new I think it will be.” This is all done without completely abandoning the old BMW DNA, though: “You can trace it back to our heritage,” he begins. “You can trace it back all the way to the BMW 1800 from the 60s. That’s BMW philosophy in a nutshell. We stay true to where we’re coming from, but we always keep moving forward.”
Max Missoni’s Already Looking Forward, But Remembers the Past
Maximilian Missoni is the newest face here. He oversees design for the top end of the BMW lineup, from the 5 Series up to and including ALPINA models. And at least part of the reason he’s here at all is Neue Klasse. “One of the reasons why I joined the company [is] because I understood that there is this courage to reimagine what BMW classic design can be like,” he said. “There are other legacy brands that are not as courageous when it comes to that.” As a reminder, Missoni comes from Polestar, where he had a hand in essentially shaping the brand’s design language we know today. Missoni also said that they’re already working on what comes after the introduction of Neue Klasse; but that’s “many years ahead.”
Missoni also had a lot to say about where electrification and design intersected. You probably remember a time where all EVs looked drastically different from everything else on the road. He does, too. “There was an effort to say, ‘Hey, look at me. I’m electric. I’m different.’ But I think we’re all seeing now that this wasn’t a very sustainable type of approach,” he says. “General trajectory is towards electrification, and there, good car design is good car design.”
M Design Remains Performance Focused
Oliver Heilmer is Missoni’s counterpart for the entry level, overseeing design for the model ranges up to and including the X3 and 3 Series. But he’s also leading BMW M design. We asked: how will M approach the Neue Klasse designs? “I think for M we’re always coming from that perspective [design] talking about performance,” he says. “Everything that we do regarding design…is improving the performance of those very cars, regardless of the drive train.” He says that regardless of drivetrain, “it still remains an M car.”
How Speedtop Got Made
The Speedtop shooting brake is a very pretty car, and its limited production run has some asking how it even got made in the first place. “The idea started from the design department,” begins Adrian van Hooydonk. But it’s a balancing act from there out. “You need involve certain departments from the big company in order to make sure that the car drives like a BMW…other departments, you have to not get involved, because then it just gets slow and complicated.” It sounds like van Hooydonk circumvented the red tape where he could, but it helps that it’s BMW we’re talking about here. “BMW, I think, is a special company in the sense that everybody inside the company, also the top management, loves cars. They love design.”
There are other benefits to doing special vehicles like this, too. Halo cars make the whole brand more aspirational. “I guess the whole key was that they knew that this is a very special occasion, and doing something in the limited number actually helps our organization also not to become complacent, not to become overly automatic, automated, like a machine,” Hooydonk says. “Because it’s not a machine on the other end, there’s real people on the other end, customers.” Apparently, most of the presumably well-heeled Speedtop customers never cared about price. “Most of them never asked me what it cost. They just said ‘I want it’,” Adrian says.
Neue Klasse iX3 is Four Months Away — But There’s Still Work to Do
Lastly, it may seem surprising, but BMW isn’t quite finished with the vehicle they’re launching in just four months. The “last phase of industrialization” is still underway, which mainly constitutes UI and UX tweaks to ensure delivery of a “product that is on point.” We’ve heard of cramming, but this feels a little ridiculous. Hopefully, the polish will show when we finally take a spin in the production Neue Klasse vehicles
