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F800st

dlearl476 said:
Classic design vs. Fad The best instance I can think of is 911 vs Z car. Look at one of each from, say, '75-'80. Funny you should mention the K bike. People are often surprised that my RT is a '94. Even more so when I tell them they came out in '86 (IIRC, or '88)
Another prime example is late model Chryslers. Sure that Charger RT looks nice, but look at the cars from the advent of the "cab forward" design era, which looked GREAT when they came out, compared to a similar year BMW. One looks like an old american car, the other could be this years model. And IMHO, it's much more than simply longer product cycles.

The Datsun Z? THAT is a beautiful little car. As is the 911. But comparing them really isn't fair, is it? They were two very different cars priced, designed and built for two different markets.

I'll refrain from offering my view of the K75RT's design. :D

I totally agree. But sadly, IMHO, it's gonna be in spite of it's design rather than partially due to it. And ten years from now, I predict it will look horribly dated.

Calling them faddish suggests that the designs lack any cohesion over a series of models and years. It also suggests that they've following someone else's design lead. Neither is true. The floating panels, as Kbasa mentioned, fits neatly with the new RT. The RT, in turn, follows the lead paved by the GS and BMW's automotive division. There is cohesion in what BMW is presenting. And these bikes are clearly, within the scope of their latest style approach, BMW's. Though form guided by performance is pushing all bikes towards some similarities of form (like a porpoise and a penguin and a shark), that F800S doesn't look like a Honda or a Ducati. Neither does the R12S or certainly the K12GT.

In the end, all you're telling us is that you don't like the designs BMW is coming up with today. That's one opinion. My own is that their designs are, with few exceptions (no one bats a 1000), getting better and better. These are just opinions. Which, in the end, is sort of my point.
 
knary said:
The Datsun Z? THAT is a beautiful little car. As is the 911. But comparing them really isn't fair, is it? They were two very different cars priced, designed and built for two different markets.

I'll refrain from offering my view of the K75RT's design. :D



Calling them faddish suggests that the designs lack any cohesion over a series of models and years. It also suggests that they've following someone else's design lead. Neither is true. The floating panels, as Kbasa mentioned, fits neatly with the new RT. The RT, in turn, follows the lead paved by the GS and BMW's automotive division. There is cohesion in what BMW is presenting. And these bikes are clearly, within the scope of their latest style approach, BMW's. Though form guided by performance is pushing all bikes towards some similarities of form (like a porpoise and a penguin and a shark), that F800S doesn't look like a Honda or a Ducati. Neither does the R12S or certainly the K12GT.

In the end, all you're telling us is that you don't like the designs BMW is coming up with today. That's one opinion. My own is that their designs are, with few exceptions (no one bats a 1000), getting better and better. These are just opinions. Which, in the end, is sort of my point.

I've heard David Robb speak a couple times and in each case he went to great lengths to explain that a BMW should look like a BMW and nothing else. He always uses the example of seeing a friend of yours with the sun behind him (or her). You can tell by the stance, or the way they hold their arm or the proportions of their shoulders that it's them, even though you can't see their features. He wants BMW to be the same way. You look at them and know, instantly, that it's a BMW. I think they've been successful with both the cars and the bikes. Notice that the cars have heavily contoured surfaces; flame contour or something, I believe. The bikes are using the same kind of contouring of the surfaces to define the marque's design.

It's a challenging look, I think, because there's nobody else doing anything like it. The Japanese are recycling the same shapes over and over (with the notable exception of Yamaha), Aprilia and Ducati are mining the house of angularity and Tamburini at MV is reworking the 916 again on the Agustas. Triumph is working on a version of the latest Japanese riffs in their sportbikes and playing their own style stuff as retro with the twins. HD? I think we all know the story there. KTMs are just too slab sided and disjointed looking to me to be pretty or interesting, though I'd really like to like them.

In my opinion, the only folks really moving motorcycle design ahead (or car design, for that matter) are the guys at BMW. (Possible exception: Ford. That new Fusion is a very handsome little car, as is the Five Hundred.)

Lots of folks won't like them because they're so far out there, but I think in ten years, we'll see these vehicles as the harbingers of new design they are. Other manufacturers are already working off of BMW's riffs in the car world. Acura has a car with a trunk bustle lifted straight off the 7 series. The Subaru B9 has some interesting contours on the bodywork that really separate it from anything Soobie has done before.

Trust me on this. Design starts by looking bold and then looking boring. I think this stuff will stay fresh for a long time.
 
This bike gets better and better...
I think I'm going to let the ATGATT rule slip this time..

BMWMilan2005004_edited.jpg


Hmmm..
BikebabesMilan2005%20009_edited.jpg
 
Yummy

Could well be my next bike. Maybe it's a good thing it's not coming stateside til next year.

Got my eye on the Triumph Daytona 675 too but whatever pragmatist there is in me says it's too 'Sport' specific. Now what to do about the R1200C or '95 DUC SSCR. If only the wife wouldn't kibash having a 3rd. Honey it's not like I'd get any money for the DUC.
 
KBasa said:
It's a challenging look, I think, because there's nobody else doing anything like it. The Japanese are recycling the same shapes over and over (with the notable exception of Yamaha), Aprilia and Ducati are mining the house of angularity and Tamburini at MV is reworking the 916 again on the Agustas. Triumph is working on a version of the latest Japanese riffs in their sportbikes and playing their own style stuff as retro with the twins.


Trust me on this. Design starts by looking bold and then looking boring. I think this stuff will stay fresh for a long time.

I disagree. IMHO, the styling of every partially faired or fully faired motorcycle since the Aprilia Futura is, to some extent, F-117/B-2 derived. David Robb, once again IMHO, has defined the outer edge of the box and taken the genre to it's least aesthetically pleasing limit. To my eye, the R6, 1050 SprintST, Daytona 675 are all watered down versions of the same design. We are now in the "Stealth" age, and just like the "Streamline Age", the "Jet Age" and the "Atomic Age" that preceeded them, the most exagerated examples of the style turn out to be caricatures of themselves when tastes move on.


In the end, all you're telling us is that you don't like the designs BMW is coming up with today.

Actually, I think it's quite possible my motocycle styling sensiblility stopped with the '99-2002 Sprint ST, Duc 996, and MV F4, K1200S, R1100S. I'm now going backwards. When I get my '69 Ducati Scrambler finished, I think I'm going to buy it's modern grandson, the HyperMotard. Yes, I'm finished with BMW. I really can't see myself ever buying anything that isn't Italian.
 
dlearl476 said:

The original. Not the various poorly derived permutations that came later. The 1970 still looks terrific to my eye. The later models, including the 260Z, have aged less well, I think.
 
KBasa said:
The original. Not the various poorly derived permutations that came later. The 1970 still looks terrific to my eye. The later models, including the 260Z, have aged less well, I think.

:nod

And an absolute hoot to drive.
 
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