SEXY SPORTY STUBBY

BMW Z4 Top: new body; Bottom: old body

The problem with the old BMW Z4 body is that it is what every man does not want to be: stubby. It looks like the long front hood was lifted from the 3 or 5 series and stuck onto a sports car. Visually, it is unbalanced and disproportionate. This is largely because the length from the front grill to the door hinge is nearly the same length as the second half of the car from the door hinge to the tail light. Finally, female designers* gave the new body -- that started with the 2009 model -- harmony and balance by optically correcting the "stubby" effect. This was corrected in mostly two simple strokes: 1) the hood does not dip in where it meets the windshield, but rather the line continues and visually connects with the line of the top of the trunk in a unified degree of curvature. That subtle dip found in the earlier models is very slight, but makes a big difference. 2) The trunk seems chopped off at the end, which makes the car feel too short and thus makes the front half front-heavy. Adding to that is the window that sensually curves around to the right to parallel the shape of the hard top and continue the curve of the body whereas the old model's window is cut off, like the trunk, with a hard vertical line. For years men have been driving around in a short and stubby sports car, and it is actually quite funny that it took a team of women to help make this man's midlife crisis vehicle more ferociously masculine.

* Exterior by Juliane Blasi and interior by Nadya Arnaout