{"id":30445,"date":"2022-08-30T12:29:34","date_gmt":"2022-08-30T16:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=30445"},"modified":"2022-08-30T12:29:34","modified_gmt":"2022-08-30T16:29:34","slug":"five-best-bmw-lights-designs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/?p=30445","title":{"rendered":"Five Best BMW Lights Designs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Up until recently, BMW has been generally considered as one of the few auto manufacturers with consistently good designs. Detractors will claim this is due to very small, incremental changes through the years. I disagree; citing that consistency is a quality to be admired. That said: it\u2019s an undeniable fact that the hallmarks of BMW design have certainly changed through the years. The once-trademark grills and Hoffmeister kink<\/a> jump to mind, but there\u2019s one other design feature that has solidified BMW\u2019s iconic status throughout generations: the headlights.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve spawned shirts, posters, and even entire aftermarket lighting solutions. There\u2019s no shortage of love for BMW lighting designs, and today we count down the five most iconic ones.<\/p>\n

Bangle Era of BMW: 5, 6, 7 Series<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Love them or, more likely, hate them \u2013 the Bangle era is the definition of iconic. Most enthusiasts can spot a Bangle design a mile away, for a range of arguably good reasons. And it\u2019s usually the early-2000s 5, 6, and 7 Series that attract the most magnetic criticism. Unfortunately, most of the designs have not \u201ccome around\u201d in the last few years. Particularly the earliest of the E65 7 Series designs will stick out in most people\u2019s minds as being downright ugly.<\/p>\n

So, the lights. The rear lights of the E65 were split across the trunk horizontally. But also, splashed on the rear-most corner of the rear quarter panels. Completely disconnected, the rear end became quickly disjointed and jarring to look at. The front sported bulbous, bubbly headlights that just seemed alien at the time. The E63 6 Series and E69 5 Series shared most of these qualities and receive similar objections. Less disparaged is the E90 3 Series \u2013 many don\u2019t even realize that Bangle designed it! Until the end, I\u2019ll defend the 6 Series \u2013 the sharklike attributes pair well with the alien looking features. But for the most part, the Bangle era is \u201ciconic\u201d of questionable design.<\/p>\n

M4 GTS \/ CS OLED Lights<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The M4 GTS was a bit of an anomaly when it debuted. But there was never any doubt that the OLED taillights it sported were excellent. One of the most-duplicated designs on the aftermarket, the OLED lights were exclusive to the M4 GTS and CS. Not even the comparable M3 got them \u2013 speculative info suggests they were simply too expensive to develop. They all came from OEM supplier Osram, and were in development since 2012.<\/p>\n

OLED stands for organic light-emitting diodes, producing light via a film of semiconducting materials. The M4 GTS was the first vehicle ever<\/em> to feature OLED tech, each taillight featuring 15 individual OLEDs. It\u2019s just another example of BMW pushing ahead when they didn\u2019t necessarily need to. From both a design and technical point, OLEDs pushed BMW\u2019s benchmark just a little bit higher.<\/p>\n

G07 X7 LCI, G70 7 Series and Split Headlights on BMWs<\/strong><\/h2>\n

BMW\u2019s LCI X7<\/a> and brand new G70 7 Series feature bold new lighting designs. When flagship models start sporting a brand-new look, that usually means it\u2019s only a generation or two from trickling down to every other model. With the 7 Series now using Swarovski crystal in the headlights, it\u2019s clear that BMW has committed in a big \u2013 and expensive \u2013 way. And while the future is always uncertain, there\u2019s no doubt that the new X7 certainly offers a lot in the way of presence \u2013 largely due to the controversial new front end.<\/p>\n

E9 \/ 3.0 CSL \u201cDual Headlights\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

While technically the E9\u2019s predecessor also featured \u201cdual headlights\u201d, the E9 perfected it. Debuting in 1968, the 2800 CS was the first of the E9\u2019s and sported a pair of headlights that didn\u2019t look out of place all the way into 1999. And even later \u2013 the next round of lighting followed very closely in its footsteps. Since most people will scratch their heads and look at you funny when you start talking about an \u201cE9\u201d, the more accessible name is probably the 3.0 CSL.<\/p>\n

The identifying feature that endured over 30 years of design is individual, circular headlights. And while this isn\u2019t something that was necessarily unique to the BMW design language at the time \u2013 that nod goes to the kidney grills \u2013 BMW is one of the only brands that chose not to reinvent the wheel and keep<\/em> that design even through the 1980s and 1990s. That along with the grills helped establish a very identifiable front end and make BMWs instantly recognizable. No other brand \u2013 before or since \u2013 carries that kind of cache from a simple pair of headlights.<\/p>\n

E39 5 Series \u201cCorona Ring\u201d Lights<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The E39 5 Series is responsible for the evolution of the CSL\u2019s double-headlight design. BMW dubbed them \u201ccorona rings\u201d and they showed up on almost every BMW made between 2000 and 2015. More substantive is the fact that they started popping up on other<\/em> OEM\u2019s cars \u2013 everything from the Mercedes G-Wagon to the Dodge Challenger.<\/p>\n

I like to believe that at least part of the reason \u201ccorona rings\u201d caught on is because the cars that first featured them were just such iconic and great-performing BMWS. But realistically, the corona ring caught on for much simpler reasons. Most importantly, it looked a lot better than almost any other headlight on the road. And secondly, it did a great job of satisfying the growing pressure for vehicles to include \u201cdaytime running lights\u201d. Whatever the reason \u2013 corona rings look amazing still today and are another shining testament to BMW\u2019s good design sense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Up until recently, BMW has been generally considered as one of the few auto manufacturers with consistently good designs. Detractors will claim this is due to very small, incremental changes through the years. I disagree; citing that consistency is a quality to be admired. That said: it\u2019s an undeniable fact that the hallmarks of BMW […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":30446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}