entwicklung 34 - claus luthe

If an article of any description feels good to use, it must be designed properly or, at least have design merit.

BMW cars have long had a reputation for being well built, and well designed. In some instances it arguably undeserved for in later years they have been known to put an emphasis on a car's equipment and features before absolute quality. None the less, there have been some models which were renowned for their beauty, some for their performance and some for the sheer fact that they re-wrote the genre or the class in which they belonged. The E34 5-series is probably not a model remembered for any one particular quality, but step into any of the myriad of available iterations of the 1988 - 1997 '5ers', and you will find possibly one of, if not the most solidly honed automobiles to ever leave the production line at Munich.

In late 1987, the E34 became the third generation of 5 series BMW, replacing the aging E28.

Wearing the glasses of the late eighties observer, the then new E34 must have looked revolutionary, like a car so modern and tradition-breaking that cars that came before it looked archaic by comparison. It was a creation of Claus Luthe, the man who had been charged with the task of evolving Paul Bracq's E12 into the E28 and then having worn the criticism that it was 'too little, too late'.

Critics can label this man's designs as sober, and sometimes as austere, but the beautifully chiseled E34, whilst neither a product of the avant garde, nor as daring as the later offerings of BMW style chief Chris Bangle, was the beginning of the future for BMW. It managed to look perfectly fresh, yet without doubt a BMW. After the early-eighties launch of the Mercedes Benz W124, the ideals of proportion had changed. Like that car, a Sacco design, the E34 was wider in relation to its length than the E28 that preceeded it. Unlike its Mercedes equivalent, it still demonstrated that a large to medium sized saloon could have a sporting appeal. The E34 was a bolder and heavier looking car than the car it superseded from all angles, and it offered a bold vision of what was to come in the 90's, not just from BMW but from other car builders around the world.

Spindly and fussy chrome detail was all but gone, replaced by folds and swages. At last, the forward slanting attitude of the traditional BMW grille was gone. In profile, the trademark kidneys were exactly vertical and were housed tidily between black plastic grilles and the familiar four-headlamp arrangement that had begun in the early seventies on the E12. That grille was also much lower in profile within the relationship of the bumper thickness, giving a lower and more aggressive look from the front. The days of chrome bumpers were waved goodbye with a nod to tight-fitting colour coded units front and rear.

Flush glass all round and a bonnet with a neat trailing edge that almost hid the wipers when parked made the E34 look from the outside, as though its interior would be a terrific place to be. And to that interior, no radical departure from earlier examples of 5er but a practical and comfortable place to guide the well balanced and relatively powerful saloon from. Dials all housed within a binnacle ahead of the driver, and the centre portion of the dash angled toward the driver made the use of its secondary controls easy and guess-free. Operate any of an E34's controls; pull the door handles, twist the ignition key, open the bonnet on its hydraulic struts or watch an electric window close perfectly on its electric lift and you'll get the feeling that these fundamental qualities have improved little in the 20 years since the car's launch, and that today's models will be lucky to operate with the same precision when they are 20 years old!

In my opinion, the single most important significance of the E34 was the introduction in 1992, of the touring model. The first 5 series estate, its styling was a totally successful adaptation of the saloons tidy lines and many observers today will probably agree that while time might not have been perfectly kind to the standard saloon, the touring is a thing of beauty. Beauty in functionality; a mid-sized car that offered a cosseting place for four to five occupants and a choice of flexible engines for a sporting drive, with enough space for all the required luggage and equipment. The tailgate has separately opening glass to avoid having to lift the whole hulk of a rear door when placing small items in the loading area. Eyelets in the floor offer the opportunity to lash down loads and a cargo barrier built into the rear seats to prevent articles entering the passenger compartment under heavy braking or in accident.

Every new model from BMW makes the previous seem obsolete. This is a marketing tool from the company that places consumers in a compromising position; "I love my BMW because it is great, so the new one must be even better"...

It serves to make the products that they worked so very hard on a generation previously seem immediately inadequate. This is a sad state of affairs, as the E34's successor the E39, left many people wanting when it came to owning a car of its generous size and weight (and price) that could handle with such verve, and feel as though it was built to last for life. The E34 is regarded by many as perhaps the best built of all BMW's back catalogue. Parts of its DNA are present in newer and current models but sadly, not the qualities that made the E34 feel like a BMW for life.