The Spies Nab A Peek At The 2012 1-Series M-Sport Brochure

I know I'm in the minority but other than the rear end (which looks just like the previous generation), I like the new one. It's much more sleek and aggressive looking than the old car, the lines and curves make the old one look, well, old. Boxy. Plain. The M-sport in particular looks very good to me, frankly I think it's a shame it's not coming here.

Sort of in the same boat for me, only that I just dislike the headlights instead. Not a bad car at all, though its European only >_<

This one is much better but still complaining with the headlights, the new front facia with lines bedide the grille help to full the empty space between headlights and the grille wich is more better.

BMW must know that the well done front facia models of the moment are:
Z4,is just perfect.
Serie 3 Coupe,perfect
X5, perfect.
The others models have something wrong in the from facia:
7 serie, grille to large and horizontal.
5 serie front facia with something fat.
x3 something wrong with headlight and grille too, etc.
The real problem is that BMW always has to use grille because is a BMW is theirs identity and they have to play with it.
I am a BMW customer for years and I love those cars but I like some change if I work in a designer team for them.

"The real problem is that BMW always has to use grille because is a BMW is theirs identity and they have to play with it."

Good point. I can imagine the Signature grille can sometimes become a limiting factor, a problem for the designer. Same is true for other brands as well example Audi. The designer has to keep the signature grille and so maybe sometimes the original designs and ideas suffer.

In case of new 1 series we can see the designer played a too much with headlights and the space between headlights and grille. Maybe the reason was the designer was limited by the grille and couldn't express his ideas on the center of the fascia and to balance that focused more on the corners of the fascia, the headlamps.

In these cases where there is a signature grille to be fitted, if the designer doesn't play more with headlights (Audi designers play with headlamps by decorating it with LEDs) than there is a danger of all fascias ending up looking similar. A problem with Audi and most fans complain and i can see it becoming a problem for BMW too soon and the result will be less inspired and interesting front end designs.

Yes, yes is true I know Mercedes, Audi have to play with the same situation because of the identity factor. This is ok. That why people know from the distance wich car is comming.
The only thing in the 1 series is that headlights are to wide almost out of proportion of the front of the car, but more interesting for me is....that they work as a designer team how is posibble that everybody are agree with this, at my consideration show out a new model is a very hard desicion when we talking about brands like MW, Mercedes or Audi. Those dominate and impose new designs for others brands.
Like Mitsubishi with his camo Audi face,etc etc.