Chip Foose redesigns the BMW M4 grille, but does it look better?

by Ciprian Florea - Top Speed

The latest BMW M3 and M4 sports compacts are the most powerful of their kind, but they’re also highly controversial due to a single design feature: the kidney grille. Not just wider than before, the grille also extends all the way to the bottom of the front fascia. This design cue alone makes the M3 and M4 looks significantly different than their predecessor, despite the rest of the car many of the old features. American car design Chip Foose also thinks that the M3 and M4 look a bit strange, so he did his own version of BMW’s new kidney grille.

Just like us here at Top Speed, Foose agrees that BMW is simply following a trend. Extending the front grille all the way to the bottom of the front fascia is something both Audi and Lexus did a few years back. In all fairness, BMWs had notably smaller front grilles when compared to cars from Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and Lexus, so maybe the Germans just wanted to catch up. Anyway, Foose isn’t the only designer that reimagined the M3 and M4. But unlike other artists, he did more than just replace the new grille with the old.

He kept the upper and lower sections of the new kidney grille and split the kidneys into the middle with an element integrated into the bumper. It’s a bit similar to what Audi did with its Singleframe grille many years back, before adopting a large, one-piece element. Foose also replaced the new horizontal bars with the more traditional vertical slats that BMW used on most of its models from the past.

Does it look better? Well, it’s a matter of taste. I actually don’t mind BMW’s new grille design for the M3 and M4, but Foose’s take is interesting, to say the least. Should BMW hire Foose for a redesign of its high-performance compacts?