So the iX just got announced and I think it proved my idea of the new grills: they look good (not that bad) on SUV's and station wagons (like the M3 station), but they look bad/wrong on sport models.
The thing is, sport models tend to be low and wide cars, while SUV's are taller and higher and look more narrow. So the new grill is tall and narrow, which fits much better on a SUV.
While the tall and narrow grill on the 4/M3/M4 basically makes the car look less low and wide, which is not what you expect from a sport car.
Basically all sport cars like Ferrari, Aston Martin, Lamborghini, Mercedes and all previous BMW's have wide and low black air in takes, which makes the car look wider and flatter. But these new grills on BMW make the sport cars look like SUV's from the front.
I personally think that the width of the grill should always be much wider than the height on a sports car (apart from Alfa's
), but that's just my opinion.
By the way... I think that if the grill is in the colour of the body it looks much more toned down. That could be the temporary solution for this strange period in BMW's design history.
