BMW head of design Adrian van Hooydonk has jumped to the defence of the newly-launched 3 Series, which has been criticised as "bland", "conservative", "very little different" and "more a facelift than a new model".
In an interview with Inside Line, Hooydonk said the design was "evolutionary".
"It is quite a big step forward," he said, "but it remains identifiable as part of the BMW family. Even if you took the badge off, you'd know what it was."
He said that the 3 Series, BMW's biggest seller, was "the core of the brand" and that there was thus a responsibility "to maintain a consistency with the brand".
By contrast, he said, the designs for the new 1 Series (which has just been released in South Africa - see our driving impressions later today!) could be more adventurous, since it was seen as a niche model.
It would seem that BMW's board of directors agrees with him; Van Hooydonk said it took them less than an hour to decide which of two final 3 Series concepts to go with.
Mind you, that isn't much of a recommendation; they were just as decisive in choosing the infamous "Bangle bungle" over a sleeker, more elegant version that even Chris Bangle himself later confessed he'd preferred, for the universally-condemned 7 Series.