For Ex-BMW Designer Chris Bangle, a Novel Diversion Chris Bangle, the former BMW design chief, drafted some of the automaker's most commercially successful, if aesthetically controversial, cars. His most recent draft, however, is devoid of shear lines and flame surfacing: It's a novel. Mr. Bangle has written "Peter Teufel: A Tale of Car Design in 3 Parts." The prologue is available to download for free at the Web site of Chris Bangle Associates, the design consultancy he founded after leaving BMW in 2009. A timetable for the eventual publication of the full book, or its prospects for print publication, were not disclosed. Within the prologue, however, we learn that Mr. Bangle knows his Charles Dickens, as well as his Philip K. Dick. He borrows a framework from Dickens" "A Christmas Carol" on which to hang his allegorical commentary on the present state and future of automobile design. In the sci-fi tale, cars become animate, with human qualities. To promote the book, Mr. Bangle has devised a contest. Design students are called on to illustrate some of the future machines he describes in the prologue. Among these are the so-called Cvars, animate combinations of automobiles and avatars. Mr. Bangle imagines such contraptions automatically assembling and disassembling themselves. The prize is a weeklong workshop with Mr. Bangle at his studios, outside of Turin, Italy, or 2,000 euros, roughly $2,600. The 10 favorites as Mr. Bangle judges them will be displayed on his firm's Web site and will appear in the second edition of the book. His new firm, Mr. Bangle says on its Web site, deals with "all the products and ideas that move the world - physically or emotionally." Another choice Bangle-ism: "Engineering is an opinion, too." Mr. Bangle lives with his wife, Catherine, in a farmhouse-studio compound in the hills surrounding Turin. There he has deployed some novel ideas suggestive of his design approach. One such example is a circular ping pong table for five players, a sketch of which appears below.