IF CHRIS Bangle were an animal, he would probably be a young dog - intelligent, playful, animated and extremely energetic.

The charismatic chief designer of the BMW Group held sway at a media workshop here last week. It was supposed to be a cruise down the boulevard of car design, but the eloquent American branched off into side streets such as history, sociology, philosophy and even geometry - all in relation to car design, of course.

To say that Mr Bangle has reshaped the modern BMW car is an understatement. Under his guidance, the previous conservative styling of the Munich-based luxury car manufacturer has been treated to flame surfacing and pronounced bootlids.

But amid the controversy this created, there is no question that Mr Bangle has revolutionised BMW design and energised it by giving its cars new forms. Even if you are unconvinced, sitting down and listening to him for a couple of hours should change your mind.

He starts with a multimedia presentation. PowerPoint slides are accompanied by some rapid sketching and the issue of small stickers, each of which lists a 'do not' rule of car design. These include, 'do not design a car with small wheels', 'do not design a car with a central headlight' and so on.

'If you have all these dogmas, you might end up making a mistake,' explains Mr Bangle.

What obviously weren't mistakes, however, were BMW's 3 Series and X5 sport activity vehicle, as well as the new Mini, which is also made by the group. These are iconic cars, he declares, because they have been successful, creating variants - like their coupe and convertible versions - and imitators in their wake.

'The iconic cars were the first to do it,' says Mr Bangle, and the difference between them and the products of other carmakers that followed them is that the icons were created from the bottom up - a few engineers decided they wanted to build a car and the response from the customers was great. On the other hand, the competition created theirs from the top down - management told the engineers to build something similar.

Mr Bangle was in Singapore because he is a member of DesignSingapore's International Advisory Panel for design. He is also a director of DesignworksUSA, a design consultancy owned by BMW and which has a studio in Singapore.

So as someone on the cutting edge of design, both automotive and product, what does he think would be the role of technology in future car design? Will it dictate design?

'Exactly the amount today, squared! Just kidding,' he says with a laugh. 'There's no real understanding of what design is. You could ask what amount of technology will change or influence design.'

On the other hand, he does not subscribe to the sort of 'deterministic inevitability' that's implied by the word 'dictate'.

'On a macro scale, big-letter changes in car design are basically influenced by two factors - what cars mean to people and how you physically make the car.'

If technology changes what a car means to people, as with the way that the best-selling 'car' in the US is a pick-up truck, because 'it's what a car means to people there', then 'meaning' implies different things to different people.

As with his cars, Chris Bangle's outlook is anything but predictable.