Global Crisis

The production i3 added black V-shaped accents on both sides of the front bumper

Now that BMW is "showing some skin" on the i3 we're getting a peak at what's been under those swirly blue wraps for the past couple years. There haven't been too many surprises because it's appearing to be very similar to the i3 concept coupe' introduced at last years LA Auto Show - and we were told the production car would be very similar. One thing that does look oddly different is the nose.

On all the BMW-supplied press photos, the i3's nose has two rather large and distinct V-shaped areas that are not painted the same as the rest of the bumper. I'm not sure if this is the actual look the production car will have, or if it's just another ploy by BMW to obfuscate the true look. However if that's the case, why go through all the trouble of custom painting the bumper skins when they could have simply kept the lovely blue swirly camouflage we've all become so fond of, on the car to keep the bumper hidden.

I'm not particularly a fan of this new custom design and actually hope the production i3 goes back to the look of the two previous concepts where the entire bumper skin was painted the same color. What do you think? Do you like the new look or the painted look of the concept cars?

The original i3 concept car

The i3 concept coupe'

Edit: Hats off to Matthew who pointed out that when viewing the photo in high definition you can see the blackout V-shaped area is actually tape and in fact it's not even symmetrical(which is easy to see now that it was pointed out to me!) So I would imagine the production car will indeed have the same painted bumpers as the two concept cars do in the above pictures. Which I definitely think looks better.  :)

Edit #2: Matthew just posted a close up which clearly shows these areas are simply taped off: