BMW’s most unconventional concepts seldom seem out of skinny air. They typically start as even stranger experiments hidden deep throughout the model’s design archives. Lengthy earlier than the i3 grew to become BMW’s quirky, eco-forward assertion piece, the corporate was already wrestling with daring questions surrounding city mobility and renewable supplies. One early design research, dubbed “Bigfoot,” pushed these concepts additional than most understand. And whereas the world by no means noticed this prototype on the street, it quietly set the stage for certainly one of BMW’s most original manufacturing automobiles.
The BMW i3 and an Unlikely Hyperlink to “Bigfoot”
Whereas “Bigfoot” in all probability isn’t the very first thing you consider whenever you lay eyes on the tiny electrical BMW i3 (the outdated one, thoughts you), an idea dubbed precisely that lent a lot of its design to the intrepid little metropolis automotive. Mission Bigfoot — which we don’t have any footage of (but?) — featured a single door, which later grew to become a rear-hinged door within the i3. Just like the i3, it was a bubble formed automotive that relied on renewable supplies like wooden. Outsized wheels and a small footprint (regardless of its deceptive identify) — in any case, Bigfoot was designed as a megacity automobile, an identical area of interest the i3 occupied — additional attracts comparability to the i3 we all know and love.
Bigfoot’s identify illustrates one of many underlying ideas behind why it exists within the first place. A Designworks spokesperson discusses how measurement and design are intertwined. “Scale for us can be an angle. It doesn’t essentially have to be in regards to the precise measurement.” He goes on to say that Bigfoot was a collaboration with Munich’s engineering workforce. Whereas the design train was, in idea, a worldwide collaboration, Bigfoot appears the best way it does partly due to Designworks’ California locale. A lot of Bigfoot’s design inspiration got here from the studio’s structure and the issues round it. Drawing inspiration from California, the design workforce apparently requested themselves “how will you create a dwelling house on wheels?” The spokesperson mentioned influences included tiny homes, which had been common in California on the time. The outcomes included unorthodox supplies like corrugated metal and wooden panels. And, an inside that mimicked what the manufacturing i3 ended up with.
Bigfoot’s Affect on the i3 is a Design Reminder
The BMW i3, even right this moment, is a method assertion. And for Designworks, Bigfoot’s relationship to the little electrical metropolis automotive is a reminder. Whereas Bigfoot by no means went into manufacturing strictly as-is, that’s virtually irrelevant. “The i3 in all probability wouldn’t have develop into such an revolutionary, radical design with out this enter,” the identical Designworks spokesperson mentioned. “We didn’t translate it actually, nevertheless it’s providing you with an thought of how far we go and push and search for new concepts.” What higher automotive showcases that precept than the i3? In spite of everything, even years after manufacturing has ended, the automotive nonetheless attracts followers and detractors.
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