The official announcement of the production-ready Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé makes a good addendum to our recent piece on the future of electric performance, if not something of a mea culpa. Although it’s true that Chinese firms are powering ahead with all-electric GT cars, we were definitely remiss not to flag up this new contender from Sindelfingen, the production version of the car teased with last year’s DayGlo Concept AMG GT.

The launch event in Los Angeles certainly stressed the power and performance of the big new coupé. A replacement for the original Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door, it eschews the original car’s signature hand-built AMG V8 in favour of batteries and three electric motors; it’s performance sub-brand’s first venture into electrification.

Mercedes itself has weathered a shaky start to become a major player in long-range EVs. It’s now in the process of blending EV and ICE models together in a single unified line-up, rather than keep them as separate, distinctive identities.

That won’t apply to the big GT, as it was always intended as a singular one-off, distinct from any Mercedes equivalent. In its first-generation ICE configuration it had few direct rivals but, as noted, the speedy GT EV sector is hotting up. Will the historic Mercedes-AMG badge be enough to switch buyers to electric?

Two things stand out. The first is that Mercedes-AMG is not au fait with subtlety. You can spec this beast to bear more logos than a Vuitton handbag, from the stylised three-pointed stars in the lights, front and rear, to the seats, headrests and headliners.

In launch specification, the mix of black and red leather, carbon fibre and carbon fibre gives off a slight seediness but Merc will offer buyers the chance to demonstrate their own taste, or lack of – for a price.

That price will probably end up exceeding the £178K+ of the outgoing model, but we’ll wager it will still slip comfortably under whatever Ferrari ends up asking for the Luce. In terms of design, the two models are chalk and cheese, with the Italian offering refined elegance and good taste and the German contender going all out to grab your eyes and ears.

Yes, the Merc-AMG will come with the synthesised sounds of a V8 (a path Ferrari will very much not be taking), just in case you’re feeling threatened by the absence of physical cylinders under the long bonnet.

The GT’s stats are impressive, from charge speed to range and outright performance. In GT63 trim (a cheaper GT55 model is also available) power peaks at the equivalent of 1,169hp, with a top speed of 186mph and a 2.4 second sprint time to 62mph. As you’d expect from a performance brand’s first dedicated EV, in other words.

The big 106kWh battery suggests a range of around 370 miles when pressing on, or a maximum of 432 miles with a featherweight right foot. High speed charging peaks at 600kW, meaning you can add over 250 miles of range in around 10 minutes.

Visually, the car is dominated by its whale-like front grille, more prominent and pushed forwards than ever before. The fastback-style body culminates in a cut-off tail, with the rear light configuration mirroring that of the original concept. Luggage space is excellent, really amplifying this car’s GT credentials, with a separate frunk bolstering the capacity.

Inside, it’s more Reeperbahn than Autobahn, with the now familiar Mercedes cliff of pixels facing down the driver and passenger. The easily information-overloaded might want to sit in the back, where it’s a little bit calmer.

Ultimately, however, calm isn’t really the AMG way. The overall style, sound and ambience of the new 4-Door Coupé makes this abundantly clear.

Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupé, more information at Mercedes-AMG.com, @MercedesAMG

The Mercedes metamorphosis continues with the reveal of the all-new C-Class, the mid-range luxury saloon that that can trace its lineage all the way back to the W201 190 model of 1982. This was a landmark car for the company, taking its over-engineered luxury to a much broader market – around 1.8m were produced. Its successor, the W202, marked the debut of the ‘C-Class’ name that has endured to the present day.

This then is the seventh generation of a car that has done venerable service for decades, as family estate, taxicab, and two-door coupé. For now, the new C-Class is saloon only and – crucially – electric only. Whether the latter is a true commitment that’ll change down the line remains to be seen, as does the likelihood of an estate car variant. Instead, Mercedes expects that customers seeking more space to turn to the GLC Electric, a compact SUV.

Visually, however, this is a saloon coded as an SUV, certainly from the front three-quarter view. The deep central grille, flanked by large low-level air intakes, has more in common with the company’s GL-series models, and has none of the linearity and elegant horizontal emphasis of, say, the smaller CLA. The shift is made even more profound by the rear light treatment, which is strongly informed by the Mercedes-AMG Concept AMG GT XX, with its twin circular lights.

Perhaps this more upright stance is the price to pay to keep a four-door saloon in the sights of customers who would otherwise automatically opt for an SUV or crossover. In profile, the C-Class doesn’t offer a traditional three-box silhouette; although the boot opening is conventional, folding rear seats maximise its practicality.

Inside, the interior accoutrements continue Mercedes’ vision of transforming its smaller cars into mini-me versions of the all-conquering S-Class, complete with optional leather and wood trim (Twisted Diamond Nappa leather, no less), elaborate chromed switchgear and bounteous lighting options. There’s also the small matter of a very large screen, a 39.1-inch monster that is, effectively, the entire dashboard fascia.

Whilst the hi-res graphics are unimpeachable, you are ceding control over practically everything to the dreaded touchscreen interface (there’s a separate roller control for volume, as well as steering wheel buttons).

To sweeten the pill, Mercedes has thrown in not one but three AI agents to decipher voice control (ChatGPT, Microsoft Bing and Google Assistant). All very well if you like that sort of thing but not so great if you’re agnostic about this most intrusive of technologies. Just as Mercedes offers a ‘vegan’ interior for the C-Class, perhaps future models will have an AI-free option as well.

The new C-Class is smart, bold and efficient (up to 473 miles (762 km) of WLTP range, thanks to a 94 kWh battery), albeit with a little bit of a visual identity crisis. Glitzy features like the MBUX Hyperscreen, and Sky Control panoramic roof, with its 162 embedded ‘stars’, will certainly lure in those seeking a sybaritic environment on a smaller scale.

If this is how the conventional saloon car has to fight back against the SUV hegemony, then I guess we’ll take it.

Mercedes-Benz C-Class, more information at Mercedes-Benz.co.uk, @MercedesBenz

It’s a year of refreshes, overhauls and new launches for Mercedes-Benz. Alongside a number of all-new models – including the new VLE and the forthcoming CLA Shooting Brake – much of the current range is getting a mid-life refresh.

Mercedes-Benz EQS

Perhaps surprisingly, that includes the big EQS electric saloon. Initially launched as a companion to the peerless S-Class (another updated model), the EQS was at one point mooted to be its successor. Then all EV strategies went south, leaving the EQS a car out of time, highly advanced yet somehow marching to a different technological tune.

The headline figure for the updated EQS is range. The original was pretty long-legged, with an official range of 480 miles and a good 300 miles available to even the most spirited driver. The revised car bests that yet again, offering up to 575 miles of WLTP range, ultra-fast charging and a complete overhaul of the onboard control systems.

The introduction of the company’s MB.OS (Mercedes Benz Operating System) doubles down on the EQE’s ability to parse and execute spoken commands, with a graphical speed and sophistication that matches up with the car’s massive dash-spanning MBUX Hyperscreen.

All this AI-enabled interaction (complete with no fewer than three types of virtual avatars) is supplemented by cossetting luxury and high-quality materials, from the heated seatbelts to the HEPA filter-equipped cabin. The new EQS hasn’t cut back on its predecessor’s predilection for a good light show; a backlit radiator, an illuminated Mercedes-Benz star and multi-hued cabin lights are just part of the car’s glowing character.

Aerodynamics and efficiency savings are legion, helping offset the EQS’ substantial weight by honing every system to chase down any energy-sapping processes and parts. New steer-by-wire technology is also offered, making the hefty machine incredibly manoeuvrable at low speeds (thanks, too, to four-wheel steering) but firm and responsive on the autobahn.

More information at Mercedes-Benz.co.uk

Mercedes-Benz GLS

As MB doubles down on the EQS’ flagship qualifications, it’s also seen fit to update the S-Class’ SUV sibling, the GLS. For the new model year, the GLS has a raft of revisions, starting with the installation of an upright three-pointed star above the radiator – traditionally the preserve of the S-Class saloon.

Everything else has been subtly fettled and fiddled with to make this behemoth 4x4 easier to live with and more pleasant to drive. From uprating the output of the top of the range GLS 580 4Matic V8-powered model to introducing more powerful headlights, faster processors, new interior trim options and updates to the MB.OS software, this is a mid-life overhaul for a car that does big business in markets like the USA.

More information at Mercedes-Benz.co.uk

Mercedes-Benz GLE

A little bit further down the food chain is the GLE model, the mid-range SUV that’s the most heavyweight member of the E-Class family. Again, it’s a host of incremental updates not an all-new car, with a new grille that adopts the flowing style of MB’s latest round of product launches.

Inside, the GLE offers up to seven seats, a vast sliding panoramic sunroof as standard across the range, new engine options and the same MBUX and MB.OS upgrades seen in the GLS and EQS.

Features like the ‘transparent body’ camera technology first seen on Range Rovers have now come to the GLE, making it easier to navigate across rough terrain. Mercedes is also now offering a sound system from its premium partner, Burmester, as an option, bringing 3D surround sound to the cabin.

More information at Mercedes-Benz.co.uk

A new F1 season has kicked off, and it’s all change on the track. Fans have to learn a whole new language – it’s goodbye DRS and hello ‘harvest mode’ and ‘super-clipping’ – and there’s even a new team in the shape of Cadillac. Off the track, the role of the pit lane as one of the world’s most-seen showcases for luxury continues with a slew of new designs and the arrival of Breitling to shake things up.

TAG Heuer is the horological title-holder (Official Timekeeper, at least); Richard Mille, the serious flex; and H Moser & Cie offers the left-field alternative. But who are the other watch players in the F1 game?

Could the MPV be making a comeback? After so many years spent under the SUV-led domination of roads around the world, the coming of new brands, new powertrains and new attitudes has subtly shifted the focus from vehicles that can putatively go anywhere to the more appealing multifunctional mobile space – the ‘multipurpose vehicle’.

A new model from Mercedes and a concept from Renault exemplify this shift. The new Mercedes-Benz VLE is the passenger version of the company’s light commercial van, drawing on last year’s Vision V Concept.

The latter was pretty much a neon-infused nightclub on wheels, exemplifying the iconic bling approach favoured by former Mercedes chief design officer Gorden Wagener. In production form, the VLE has naturally been toned down, but not so much that all character has been extinguished.

Mercedes-Benz VLE

Inside, there’s flexible seating with either three front-facing rows or two pairs of facing seats, familiar to anyone who’s had an upscale airport transfer. It’s all part of what Mercedes hopes will become a broad portfolio for this hard-working vehicle, with uses that range from family runabout to commercial transportation. With moveable seats for up to eight, the model marks the debut of Mercedes’ new Van Architecture.

Passenger comfort is of prime concern in this sector, especially when scene setters in Eastern markets have made a substantial pivot away from luxury saloon cars to upscale MPVs.

This new focus is exemplified by what Mercedes calls the MBUX Rear Space Experience. This is shorthand for the plethora of in-car entertainment systems available to passengers, culminating in a retractable 31.3-inch 8K screen that folds down from the headliner.

Ultra-fast 800-volt charging and a suggested range of 435 miles bring added practicality (let’s not forget that its VW rival, the Buzz, can barely manage 200 miles on a good day). Top-of-the-line models get Airmatic suspension and there’s also rear-axle steering to make this big car feel more wieldy in tight spots.

Renault R-Space Lab Concept

On a smaller scale but no less intriguing is this new concept from Renault, the product of the company’s new far-reaching Futurama laboratory. The R-Space Lab is a compact monobox design, a genre the company practically had all to itself back in the heyday of the original 1980s-era Renault Espace.

At 4.5m long and 1.5m tall, the R-Space Lab is relatively compact by contemporary standards. The R-Space Lab is also less overtly van-like than the VLE, but there is a renewed focus on a reconfigurable interior, with a passenger seat that can slide back to interact with the rear seats.

The digital cockpit has also been shaped with space-saving in mind, from the compact steering wheel to a multi-functional glovebox than can fold out to provide more space to recline. A full panoramic roof also adds to the spacious feel, while rear seats fold to create a completely flat floor for load-carrying and even car-camping.

Mercedes-Benz VLE, more information at Mercedes-Benz.co.uk

Renault R-Space Lab Concept, more information at Renault.co.uk

The seventh-generation Mercedes-Benz S-Class appeared on the market back in 2020, and the flagship saloon received the now-traditional upgrades in appearance, sophistication and technological innovation. Now it’s time for the W223 generation’s so-called mid-life ‘facelift’ (although this term surely won’t endure for much longer in the auto industry).

As well as tweaks to the styling – mostly in terms of bringing the lighting, graphics and grille up to date – the new S-Class also ushers in a number of technological firsts. Ever since the early days of the S-Class, it’s served as the public stage for a steady drip-feed of innovation, almost all of which eventually cascades down to lowlier models.

One might have thought that the well of ideas would be running dry, given that Mercedes has tasked itself with finding new ways of doing things ever since the first S-Class arrived back in 1972. However, a quick skim through the press release accompanying the new model should dispel any fears; at over 16,000 words, it’s stuffed full of the kind of superlatives that make long-term S-Class buyers reach for their wallets.

In some respects, this new version could be seen as Gorden Wagener's swansong, the final flowering of a design directorship that drove a newer, bolder definition of luxury than the sober-suited Mercedes of old. If you like lights, inside and out, this car doesn’t disappoint.

As well as increasing the size of the grille by 20 per cent – putting the S-Class more in line with other yawning Merc models – the new model debuts an optional illuminated bonnet-mounted star. The eagle-eyed will also spot the way that both head- and taillights incorporate the signature three-pointed star motif, while, inside, the neon fever dream continues with more mood lighting than the VIP lounge in a Baku nightclub.

All this bling is tempered by functionality, such as the next-generation digital headlamps, which offer a larger field of illumination, lower energy consumption, high beams that can throw light some 600m and the ability to auto-detect other vehicles so as not to dazzle anyone (Mercedes leads the way on this particular tech, in our experience).

Another thing to note is that the new S-Class is very consciously keeping one foot in the combustion era. Back when the all-electric EQE arrived, it was speculated that this might one day usurp the S-Class’ top-dog position and, to that end, the flagship was only every hybridised.

Although there have been plenty of raucous AMG variants of the S-Class over the years – the S63 was a particular favourite – the new model debuts with a clutch of traditional engines, including a new V8 along with petrol and diesel V6s. Plug-in hybrid power is also available.

You’ll never want for extra power, or smoothness, but right now the S-Class is leaning into its limousine roots, with Airmatic suspension and an optional E-Active intelligent damping system. In any case, a vast majority of S-Class users never get behind the wheel.

One area where the S-Class has been unduly influenced by the EQS is the interior. Alongside that lairy lighting are a triple whammy of massive touchscreens. Wagener always insisted throughout his tenure that touchscreens could be made truly premium. As dials and buttons creep back into auto interiors across the board, Mercedes’ insistence on the power of touch is starting to look a little bloody-minded.

Nevertheless, the latest version of MB.OS builds on what is one of the industry’s best interfaces, and there’s also an MBUX ‘Virtual Assistant’ for the touchscreen phobic.

Speech recognition for this agent is driven by ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini Automotive tech and Microsoft’s Bing for a truly ‘multi agent approach’ that should be able to remember context of past conversations. Interestingly, Mercedes also claims that the car’s responses can be ‘empathetic’.

A degree of future-proofing is also provided by the MB.Drive Assist Pro software, which will come attuned to China’s advanced standards, allowing for ‘seamless point-to-point driving in dense urban traffic’, as well as a dizzying standard package of driver assist safety technologies.

Rear seat options draw heavily on the aesthetics and amenities of First Class aviation, with fold-flat seats and large entertainment screens. Mercedes is also introducing a Manufaktur Made to Measure tier of personalisation, perhaps drawing on the experience of the Maybach brand. In addition to more colour and trim options, door sill branding can be specified and emblems added to seats.

The nervous traveller can specify the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class S 680 Guard 4Matic with VR10, courtesy of the company’s specialist armoured vehicle division. Offering protection against explosives and bullets, complete with an emergency fresh air supply for gas attacks and an automatic fire-extinguishing system, the S 680 Guard provides heavy-duty peace of mind.

The ‘standard’ car will be safe enough for most. Options and accessories appear limitless. There’s the integrated Amazon Music and Disney+ system, paired with – at the top option level – a 39-speaker Burmester audio system with Dolby Atmos. Illuminated cup holders. Heated seat belts. Onboard Teams meetings. Air vents that can automatically swivel to eight individual positions. Six different seat massage programmes, including a hot stone session.

This cavalcade of superlatives and novelties is unsurprising, given that Mercedes claims that more than 50 per cent of the car is freshly developed or substantially updated from the original W223.

We’ll be getting behind the wheel of this ultra-intelligent machine in due course.

Mercedes-Benz S-Class, from €121,356.20 (S 350 d 4MATIC Saloon), Mercedes-Benz.com, @MercedesBenz

Gorden Wagener is leaving Mercedes-Benz in another design shake-up at a premium auto manufacturer. From 2016, Wagener was the brand’s all-encompassing chief design officer, overseeing the company’s expansion into non-automotive sectors, including speedboats, aviation and even architecture, as well as the stuttering segue into electrification. He ramped up creative collaborations, especially in the worlds of art and fashion, to reposition the three-pointed star as a more youthful, diverse and dynamic brand.

Wagener joined Mercedes in 1997 at the tail-end of the brand’s era of formal, reserved, almost austere luxury developed by the late Bruno Sacco, who led the design department at the time. Much has been made of how Wagener – a trained automotive designer who studied at the RCA in London – became the first Mercedes design boss without a background in engineering. In 2008, he became vice-president of Mercedes design, taking over from Peter Pfeiffer.

As well as leading design development across the full spectrum of Mercedes passenger cars, from A-Class upwards, Wagener also pushed further and further into the luxury space, working on the Mercedes-McLaren SLR and SLS as well as the subsequent rebirth of Maybach as the brand’s ultra-luxury line and Mercedes-AMG as a provider of standalone supercars and saloons.

Significant collaborations included work with Moncler, Nigo and, notably, the late Virgil Abloh, who also worked with Wagener on the mighty Maybach by Virgil Abloh Concept. Latterly, Wagener initiated the ‘Class of Creators’ to showcase the new CLA. This included installations by Ice Spice, Gustaf Westman and Colm Dillane, as well as cars inspired by the video games League of Legends and the Hot Wheels toys.

At the same time as Mercedes targeted young, fashionable customers from new markets like China, Wagener ensured the brand stayed true to its luxury roots, pushing ever further upmarket and spreading its wings into helicopter interiors and speedboats, with a custom Eurocopter EC145 and the Silver Arrows Marine Cruiser, courtesy of the Mercedes-Benz Style division.

There have also been forays into real estate, courtesy of the Mercedes-Benz Places residential towers in Dubai and Miam and the recently announced Maybach Ocean Club, a floating resort and club.

Wagener has always been emphatic about the role of striking and memorable design in helping shape brands. His own ‘visual manifesto’, a book called Sensual Purity set out his future-facing ethos. In 2023, he said that ‘every designer strives to create something new and unique and, in so doing, make a statement that resonates long into the future. But whether or not a designer’s work actually becomes an icon only becomes apparent with the passage of time. However, it’s icons that count. They define luxury and embody specific characteristics.’

Wagener will be replaced by Bastian Baudy, who currently oversees Mercedes-AMG. Here's a tour of Wagener’s greatest hits, along with some misses.

Mercedes-Benz CLS

The original Mercedes-Benz CLS was launched in 2003 and marked the arrival of a 'style first' approach. The second generation CLS wasn't quite as striking, but it showcased Wagener's decision to emphasise the more emotional characteristics of the brand.

Mercedes AMG GT

The Mercedes-AMG GT went head to head with the Porsche 911, an elegant two-seater powered by AMG's legendary V8 engine. Launched in 2014, it eventually spawned a four-door saloon sibling and is now on its second generation.

Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6

The conceptual Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6 from 2017 harked back to the glory days of both marques, when cars were titanic expressions of wealth, status and craft.

Maybach by Virgil Abloh

Maybach by Virgil Abloh Concept was quite unlike anything the brand – or the fashion designer – had ever done before, a vast SUV with a richly bespoke interior.

Mercedes-Benz EQS

The 2021 Mercedes-Benz EQS came at a point of transition for all automotive brands –go all-in on new designs for EVs or evolve their current design language? Under Wagener, Mercedes chose the former path, before ultimately rowing back and reassessing when the all-electric EQS didn't perform as well as expected.

Mercedes-Benz Vision V Concept

A starry preview of 2026's premium minivan, the 2025 Mercedes-Benz Vision V Concept went all-out on interior bling. An emphasis on prominent screens, vivid lighting and premium materials has characterised the Wagener era.

Mercedes-Benz Vision One-Eleven Concept

The dramatic Mercedes-Benz Vision One-Eleven Concept from 2023 pushed the company's design language to the limits, using the pioneering forms of 1970s era experimental cars to explore future forms.

Mercedes-Benz Vision Iconic Concept

More grandiosity, the 2025 Mercedes-Benz Vision Iconic Concept teetered on the edge of parody – at the very least, this is a car for a Marvel Universe villain.

Mercedes-AMG Concept AMG GT XX

One of a flurry of conceptual visions created in 2025, the Mercedes-AMG Concept AMG GT XX contains hints of next year's Mercedes-AMG four-door super saloon.

Mercedes-Benz.com, @MercedesBenz

The ability to completely get away from it all tends to be the preserve of the ultra-wealthy. But short of your own armoured compound in Hawaii or New Zealand and providing you don’t mind the close proximity of other 0.1 per cent-ers, one way to permanently elevate your lifestyle above the daily grind is to take to the waves.

Over the last few decades, several conceptual ideas for ship-based enclaves of the super-rich have been floated, with only The World of ResidenSea, launched as MS The World, actually making good the promise of a globe-roaming, tax-free bolthole on the high seas.

This is a shame, because apart from the societal benefits of corralling the world’s wealthy into a single hard-to-miss spot, there have been some genuinely outlandish ideas for floating utopias over the years. The almost farcically over-scaled Freedom Ship, a 1.8km-long barge for 80,000 refugees from restrictive taxation and legislation, has been drifting around the world’s drawing boards since the 1990s.

There’s also the faintly Logan’s Run-esque Serenity, a cruise colony for the over-eighties proposed by shipbuilder Meyer Werft, and the World City Phoenix project, an (unrealised) precursor from MS The World’s creator Knut Klosters. Originally conceptualised back in the 1980s by Danish ship designer Knud E.Hansen, the Phoenix was a floating resort for over 5,000 people.

Size isn’t everything (although tell that to the average superyacht owner). This is the Beyond Horizons, a proposed superyacht-scale private vessel housing an exclusive ocean-going members’ club. The concept is ‘Inspired by Maybach’, Mercedes-Benz’s luxury division, and translates the aggressively sybaritic design of its passenger cars across a series of staterooms, cabins and over 50,000 square feet of deck.

The Maybach Ocean Club is essentially a superyacht membership club, with scope and style that harks back to the final glory years of the grand ocean liners in the 1920s. Back then, the Maybach brand had a marine propulsion branch (it also made Zeppelin engines), so Mercedes-Benz Design has deemed fit to bring the Maybach emblem and ethos into this shiny new world at sea.

As these renders show, it’s an environment scrubbed clean by an army of invisible deckhands to achieve the eternal newness of a turnkey chalet, Miami beach house or Dubai penthouse. The carmaker’s property arm, Mercedes-Benz Places, is already building high-rise real estate in Miami and Dubai, so a superyacht seems like the next logical move.

If you can’t stomach the fortune-draining running costs of a regular superyacht (roughly 10 per cent of the purchase price, year on year), or simply wish to cosplay Agatha Christie or Rian Johnson, perhaps the Maybach Ocean Club could be your new home from home.

The proposal was launched in Fort Lauderdale in November 2025, with Gorden Wagener, chief design officer for the Mercedes-Benz Group AG, overseeing the reveal of a scale model and imagery of the Beyond Horizons. ‘Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach are credited with building one of the first motorboats powered by an internal combustion engine; this legacy of innovation at sea informed our design process and inspired us to go beyond expectations,' Wagener said.

The MD and co-founder of the Maybach Ocean Club, Michael Hehn, describes the service as a ‘new model that enhances the joys of yachting without the burden of management and maintenance. This club reflects Maybach’s spirit of innovation but also speaks to something timeless – sharing special places and experiences with people who matter most in our lives,’ Hehn continues.

The boat itself will be overseen by German naval architects and consultants Dölker + Voges and there’s no word of an official launch date just yet.

More information at Mercedes-Benz.com and Maybach-Ocean-Club.com

Mercedes-Benz has gone back to the 1930s for the noirish art deco design inspiration of its Vision Iconic concept; a quietly menacing massive-bonneted electric and autonomous grand tourer. It’s an elegant yet cartoonish machine, and for all its futurism and the svelte ground-hugging lines, it’s easy to imagine Indiana Jones gripping onto the hood emblem for dear life.

Unveiled in Shanghai last week (14 October 2025), the Vision Iconic is Mercedes’ most explicit attempt yet to marry its halcyon pre-war glamour with the cold, clinical logic of 21st-century electrification. This show car is tailored like a black velvet tuxedo: it’s theatrical, impeccably cut, absurdly expensive to make, and immediately convincing.

From a distance, it reads like a sculpture – long-boned, low-slung and deliberately anachronistic. The acres of bonnet – containing what, we don’t know – meet an aerodynamic glasshouse and a neatly tucked rump that narrows into a teardrop silhouette. But above all else, what really grabs the attention is the ‘radiator’ grille.

Drawing inspiration from Mercedes lux-o-barges from the 1960s and 1970s, like the W108, W111 and 600 Pullman, the upright grille has a chrome frame, smoked glass lattice and contour lighting. It can also be animated to display different graphics. If you could drive this car back in time, that might be very useful when communicating with spies hiding in the shadows of the Berlin Wall.

The brooch-like appendage is Mercedes’ rebuttal to the smooth featureless visages of most EVs and a declaration that, even with a heart full of batteries, four-wheeled prestige deserves a face. This follows on from the new GLC and upcoming C-Class, both of which reject subtlety of snout for big light-up boat races.

Inside, there’s more blue velvet than a David Lynch thriller. Lounge-lizard material covers the Elvis-era bench seating, and there are polished brass accoutrements and inlays of mother-of-pearl on the facia and door panels.

The centrepiece of the pillar-to-pillar instrument panel is a floating glass structure that has been dubbed ‘the Zeppelin’, containing analogue-style dials and digital screens – the dials perform mechanical animations before the widescreen display wakes up, and a clock shaped like the three-pointed star doubles as an AI interface.

Mercedes describes the experience within as ‘hyper-analogue digital luxury’. The four-spoke steering wheel looks like it’s been liberated from a speedboat. You can admire the floor, too, clad in elaborate straw marquetry, which was fashionable in the 17th century and was revived in the roaring 1920s. It suggests a future in which touchscreens and artisanal craftsmanship sit side by side.

Period sensibility meets advanced systems thinking when it comes to the paint job, too. That’s not simple black lacquer you see before you. It’s ‘solar paint’, an invisible photovoltaic coating which, via micro-solar modules, can meaningfully top up the car’s electric range. Mercedes say that if they were to slap solar paint onto a mid-size SUV it could produce enough energy for up to 7,500 miles a year.

The concept also introduces a new steer-by-wire system and level-four autonomous tech, complete with a neuromorphic AI computer system designed to mimic the human brain. Fully autonomous driving systems can drain batteries faster than putting your foot down, but this clever system has the ability to reduce the energy required for autonomous driving by 90 per cent. It’s also ten times more efficient at reading the road than non-neuromorphic systems and reacts faster.

These are technologies that’ll be on a production S-Class soon enough. Most interestingly, what the Vision Iconic is foretelling is Mercedes’ embrace of its bullish, bellicose and eccentric heritage, of building spectral sports cars and limos for dictators and people with ‘von’ in their names.

Vintage design is not a trap but a lens through which to sharpen the future. As a piece of couture, the Vision Iconic reminds the world that Germany still knows a thing or two about sending a message of strength.

Vision Iconic, concept only, more information at Mercedes-Benz.com

Munich’s IAA Mobility Show is a different kind of motorshow, reflecting the industry’s general shift away from big-budget events that have fallen out of favour with the public. In addition to an IAA Summit for professionals and media, designed to entice big-name manufacturers alongside start-ups, commentators and industry-watchers from all aspects of mobility design, and the regular show stand arrangement, there’s also the IAA Open Space.

The last is an open event for the general public, scattered around the streets, stores and exhibition spaces in the heart of Munich and designed to put new ideas and fresh launches in front of the very people who’ll ultimately end up buying them. The bi-annual event started in 2021, grew more in 2023, and this time around, there were even more manufacturers involved, with major announcements made across the board.

Some of the concepts on show have already broken cover, including the Vauxhall Corsa GSE Vision Gran Turismo and the Audi Concept C, as well as a major activation by Cupra.

Read on to discover our selection of key reveals from the show.

BMW iX3

The home-ground advantage was played by all the German manufacturers. Munich is, after all, the home of BMW. To consolidate this status, BMW chose the IAA to launch its ‘Neue Klasse’ iX3, the first production version of a new design language that’s been previewed by a number of concept cars.

In the metal, this new all-electric mid-sized SUV impresses with its restraint, and the apparent about-face BMW is taking with its signature kidney grilles – once huge, now daintily proportioned. The interior pairs a central touchscreen with a slim, wide display set just beneath the windscreen. There’s more minimalism here as well, especially on the pared-back door trims. With a promised range of up to 500 miles, the iX3 will be one of the first true volume cars to do away with range anxiety altogether.

BMW.co.uk, @BMW

Volkswagen

VW also had a slew of major announcements up its sleeve, both for the main Volkswagen brand and for wider activity in the VW Group. In addition to cementing the existence of a compact ‘Electric Urban Car Family’, featuring distinct but related models from Volkswagen, Cupra, and Škoda, all priced from around €25,000, VW also doubled down on a new naming strategy.

Turns out that the ID. name plate will no longer be the only sign of a pure VW EV. As of 2026, what would have been the ID.2 will now be known as the ID.Polo, with ID.Golf to follow. The realisation that these classic model names, with their decades of history and loyal following, could simply be taken into the electric era seems like a no-brainer – the only surprise is that it took VW so long to realise.

The ID.Polo, along with its GTI sibling, were both shown at IAA – albeit still in camouflage – along with the ID.Cross concept, a compact urban SUV. Both slot into the Electric Urban Car Family announced above, alongside the Cupra Raval and Škoda’s Epiq.

VW also showed the newest version of the popular T-Roc, another compact SUV. Finally, there was the ID.Every1, a concept with the task of bringing VW back into the ultra-compact urban car category like classic older models such as the Lupo and the Up!.

Volkswagen.de, @Volkswagen

Porsche 911 Turbo S

Porsche presented its new flagship 911, the 911 Turbo S. A legendary name, this latest version of the evergreen sports car goes heavy on the tech. Power output is at record levels (711 PS), thanks in part to a T-Hybrid powertrain that incorporates two electric exhaust gas turbochargers. There’s also all-wheel drive and an EV-bothering 0-62mph sprint time of 2.5 seconds.

Like all 911s, the new Turbo S is designed to be easy to live with, combining that massive power with a spacious cabin, great sightlines and a colossal breadth of dynamic ability, from everyday use about town to the challenge of the track.

Porsche.com, @Porsche

Mercedes-Benz GLC

Another big reveal came from Mercedes, which countered BMW’s iX3 with the new version of its equivalent model, the GLC. The all-electric Mercedes-Benz GLC with EQ Technology (the car’s official name) also demonstrates a company rowing back from the idea of separate lines of ICE and EV cars. The first GLC was introduced back in 2015 and a decade has truly transformed the model.

Instead of its rather lumpy forebears, the newest GLC is relatively slim in profile for an SUV, with neat rear-light treatment. The big grille rather lets the ensemble down – no lessons learned from BMW’s vogue for shrinking front-end graphics. Inside, Mercedes is still wedded to vast displays with the latest iteration of the dash-devouring MBUX Hyperscreen.

The car’s operating system uses a so-called multi-agent approach, taking the best bits of AI from both Google and Microsoft. As a result, Mercedes claims that ‘for the customer, talking to the MBUX Virtual Assistant is like chatting with a friend – it can provide detailed responses and answer follow-up questions without the need to repeat context’.

Mercedes-Benz.de, @MercedesBenz

Avatr Vision Xpectra concept

There were also plenty of Chinese brands represented, marked a fresh wave of new metal intended to increase the country’s Western market share. New models from Leapmotor, Deepal, GAC and Dongfeng included the GS7 SUV, with its quirky animated headlights, the Aion UT, as well as the arrival of Dongfeng’s new Forthing sub-brand in Europe and the Huawei-owned Aito brand, which showed three new crossover models.

Our attention was grabbed by Avatr’s dramatic Vision Xpectra, a vast new concept created by this sub-brand from Changan Automobile to express what it calls ‘emotive luxury’.

As well as the sheer scale of the 5m-plus limousine, with its near fully-glazed upper body, there’s a wealth of technology crammed into the interior, much of which is controlled via a VPA (Virtual Personal Assistant), the latest must-have for modern cars. Shown alongside production models, including the Avatr 06, 07, 11 and 12, the Xpectra is a bold statement of intent.

Vision.Avatr.com

Polestar 5

Polestar finally revealed the production version of the long-awaited Polestar 5 at Munich. As the EV company gets closer and closer to completing its projected line-up, the arrival of the 5 marks the most premium Polestar yet, with the Performance model starting at £104,900 for the Launch Edition.

Based on the original 2020 Precept Concept, the Polestar 5 is described by the company as a ‘performance grand tourer’. The dual motor model should be good for around 400 miles of range, whilst the rapid Polestar 5 Performance is rated at 351 miles. At 5m in length, the Polestar 5 is limousine-sized, with rear space and accoutrements to match.

Polestar.com, @Polestarcars

Mini John Cooper Works concepts

Mini created a large-scale installation in the heart of Munich, complete with faux Tube station entrances and lots of lovely British clichés. When it came to cars, the BMW offshoot chose to present a collaboration with the lifestyle brand Deus Ex Machina, which resulted in two one-off John Cooper Works cars, dubbed The Machina and The Skeg.

Drawing influences from drag racing and surf culture, the two concepts are full-blooded race cars and have inspired a capsule collection from the brand. Asymmetric styling cues and liveries are coupled with spoilers and slick tyres, with one car celebrating EV power and the other traditional ICE.

Mini.de, Deuscustoms.eu

Renault Clio

The Clio is an important car for Renault, even though most of the company’s recent attention has focused on the 4 and the 5. The Clio was a mainstay for many years, and now the compact car is back, this time with a hybrid powertrain. The sixth generation of this popular small car is actually larger than ever before and shares several interior elements with the 4 and 5 models.

There’s little evidence of retro design here, however, with a more aggressive front-end styling. Despite the hybrid power, it’s still a light car by modern standards, and should be impressively economical as a result.

Renault.de, @Renault_de

Škoda Vision O

We see hints of the 1954 Chevrolet Corvette Nomad in Škoda’s brave Vision O estate car concept. At a time when the practical, elegant estate has been all but decimated by the SUV, the brand’s decision to double down and reinvigorate the segment is a welcome one.

Look beyond those very conceptual doors and you’ll see a finely proportioned wagon that combines Škoda’s playful but practical approach with a new design language, ‘Modern Solid’. The dashboard gets the two-screen set-up also seen in BMW’s iX3, with the upper level dubbed the ‘Škoda Horizon Display’, while there’s also a softer, more natural approach to interior materials and aesthetics, as well as ‘Bio-Adaptive Lighting’ that uses natural light cycles to keep occupants feeling fresh and alert.

As well as 650 litres of luggage capacity, the Vision O also debuts new ‘Simply Clever’ features, the little design add-ons that have come to define Škoda’s attention to detail. The signature door-stowed umbrella is present and correct (no fewer than four of them), and the car incorporates a fridge as well as a detachable Bluetooth speaker.

Also on display was the new Škoda Epiq, a conceptual preview of the company’s contribution to VW’s quartet of compact all-electric city cars. Like its siblings, the Epiq will hit the streets in 2026, largely unchanged from the car you see here.

With a low price, above average range for the sector (c.260 miles) and a spacious, functional interior, the Epiq will be the first production car to incorporate the Modern Solid design language and shows the brand hasn’t forgotten its functional, affordable roots.

Skoda-Auto.com, @Skodagram

Hyundai Concept Three

This is the Concept Three, a preview of the next and smallest car to bear Hyundai’s Ioniq sub-brand EV badge. Expected to reach production as the Ioniq 3, if you overlook the tinted windows, lemon-yellow interior and purple highlights, you’ll see the fundamental silhouette of the next-gen compact car.

The Three actually brought to mind the 2007 Hyundai HND-3 concept, which in turn reached production as the quirky and asymmetric Veloster in 2011. Both cars had an unusual door arrangement, something that’s carried through to this concept, with its coach rear door.

The concept demonstrates what Hyundai is calling its ‘Art of Steel’ design language, doubling down on the industrial conglomerate’s impressive ability with the material, along with the Parametric Pixel detailing seen across the rest of the Ioniq range. All European EVs were on display at IAA Mobility 2025, as well as the Insteroid concept first shown at Seoul in the Spring.

Hyundai.com, @Hyundai

Look back at the evolution of car construction and styling over the course of a century and the progress is evident. Today’s cars are styled like spaceships compared to the boxy, top-heavy motorised carriages of old. But when it comes to interiors, the evolution has been a little slower. Inspect the cockpit of a 1912 Rolls-Royce and you’ll likely find four or more forward-facing seats, quilted leather, wood trim, milled metalwork, intricate dials, a clock, pedals, a gear lever and a steering wheel. It might be a little low-tech and drafty compared with the modern-day equivalent, but the format remains much the same.

‘Historically, car interiors have been designed as singular, controlled environments, offering occupants a unique, hermetically sealed experience,’ says Luke Miles, founder of brand-experience studio NewTerritory. ‘While exterior design often represents the brand, the interior has been a missed opportunity for delivering more meaningful, multi-sensory experiences.’

Formally head of design for Virgin Atlantic and LG Europe, Miles founded London-based NewTerritory in 2017, which specialises in experience design for transport brands such as Delta Air Lines and Mercedes-Benz AG. The Clerkenwell studio is awash with design literature, intriguing samples and mock-ups of an aircraft cabin and a car’s cockpit. It’s no surprise this buzzy townhouse studio caught the attention of US experience consultancy Geniant, which acquired it in July 2025.

Inside the studio, Miles and his team work across a variety of top-secret transport-related products and solutions for well-known brands, all designed to take interior spaces into the next level, instil that particular brand’s ideals on those travelling and, all being well, give them a positive experience to write home about. Not all that easy when your audience of travellers is either busy, distracted, stressed or all of the above.

‘Historically we’ve done a lot of work in aviation spaces, which are very high-density experiential spaces, with an audience that’s captive for a long time. But with automotive, it’s different – you’re in a sealed environment and have complete control over your climate and what’s going on around you,’ says Miles. ‘Other than just the physicality of the interior, we’re looking at how can you pull in more of the senses to deliver an experience that is meaningful and memorable.’

While the structure and format of car interiors hasn’t changed much in a century, it hasn’t dampened carmakers’ appetite for experimentation. In 2013, Mercedes made in-car fragrance diffusers mainstream when it incorporated its Air-Balance package into the S-Class, which pumped scents such as ‘Nightlife Mood’ or ‘Downtown Mood’ from refillable cartridges into the cabin.

Despite it being a slightly more upmarket take on the air freshener dangling from the rear-view mirror, Mercedes still uses fragrance, alongside sound, climate, lighting and seat massage functions, to ‘boost driver wellbeing’, as part of its comfort programmes in cars like the all-electric EQS. It’s as full-on as it sounds, particularly when accidentally triggered it on a quiet motorway stretch at night.

At Jaguar Land Rover, the Range Rover Sport SV saw the arrival of the ‘Body and Soul Seat’ (BASS) in 2024, which plugs into the entertainment and vibrates the seat to the music – something that was added to the new Defender OCTA also. While both Mercedes’ and JLR’s in-cabin innovations can be passed off as slightly eccentric novelties, there is one aspect of car interior innovation that all carmakers have homed in on: the screen.

‘There's this kind of centre of gravity pull towards the screen, which has led to screen dominance,’ says Miles. ‘There's so much you could do sensorially with that space. It's not about just chasing technology and going for screens because they're there, but about trying to be more quiet, sensitive and empathic with how that vehicle communicates with you. It’s hard to demonstrate a brand through the screen because it becomes this midpoint where you can't really tell one from the other,’ he adds.

In its place, Miles argues light, sound and haptics can all provide information to the driver and passengers in the right way and at the right time, without the need for information being channelled through the screen.

‘The interesting thing is to be able to quieten down the interior and then bring information up as required, rather than have it permanently there.’ When it comes to changing the traditional structure of the cabin, Miles sees autonomy as the biggest enabler. ‘When cars reach level five autonomy, which requires no human intervention, then the cabin space can move from being directional to being more dynamic – you can reorientate the interior in a completely different way.’

Not so long ago, when autonomous cars were expected on the roads by the early 2020s, car manufacturers rushed out with concept cars that showed occupants sleeping, watching films and facing each other in a lounge-like setting. In January 2025, transport design student Arya Kani dreamt up the Mercedes x Belmond Hotel on Wheels: Vision Pullman Express, which envisaged a futuristic fastback that doubled as a mobile hotel suite.

‘There's somehow a tension between traditional automotive language, which has dynamism, direction and speed to it, versus the more domestic setting,’ says Miles. ‘This autonomous technology might give rise to new typologies and vehicle – not just in terms of private shared ownership but with the provision of services,’ he adds, going on to explain how entirely new types of vehicles could reshape the idea of mobile healthcare, food delivery or, as Kani’s concept showcases, hospitality.

‘That could be incredibly valuable in certain locations where you might not have the infrastructure to allow people to move from their homes to a more densely populated city, so you could take those services out to them,’ says Miles.

When it comes to technology a little closer to reality, Miles sees a switchback to more analogue controls, particularly in luxury automotive – not just so people can turn something by knowing where the switch is but, ‘through the tactility of those micro interactions, you can also get a sense of the craftsmanship of that vehicle, which maybe lost digitally’.

With brands such as Ferrari returning to buttons over touch-sensitive controls – as with its new Amalfi sportscar – it’s highly likely we’ll see others following suit.

‘Sometimes reductionism, particularly for those highly crafted, well-engineered pieces, can take it back to that midpoint, and you don't necessarily have those little, well-considered details,’ explains Miles.

Alongside AI becoming more a part of the in-car experience and the move away from seeing screens as a solution to everything, Miles sees a need for carmakers and vehicles to act more as hosts, creating experiences that are specific to them. ‘It makes sense, because there are new entrants and new businesses producing vehicles at speed, but for legacy automakers, I think this is a really rich vein to go after and interrogate.’

For now, don’t expect the interior layout of any new car to change too drastically, at least until the first truly full autonomous cars start rolling out. But with Uber expecting to deliver its first driverless taxis on London’s streets as early as spring 2026, the moment for mass-manufactured autonomous cars might come sooner than we think. In the meantime, be assured that designers like Miles are fighting for change, one switch and sensory moment at a time.

NewTerritory.io, @NewTerritoryDesign

The performance arm of Mercedes-Benz, Mercedes-AMG, likes to be at the cutting edge of propulsion. Up until now, AMG hasn’t committed to all-out electrification, having built its reputation on the primacy of its hand-built engines, most notably a modern V8 that also finds its way into Aston Martin’s DB12 and Vantage models.

With a customer base effectively addicted to the snap, crackle and pop of the OTT AMG exhaust note, there was uproar amongst the enthusiasts when the sub-brand broke with tradition and went hybrid, mating a humble 4-cylinder engine to an electric motor. Earlier this month, AMG announced a Starmer-ish U-turn with a promise to up the cylinder count on future models.

However, what will this vocal contingent have to say about this, the palindrome-adjacent Mercedes-AMG Concept AMG GT XX? For this conceptual vision is a clue as to how AMG ends up ditching combustion altogether. It’s a showcase for what can be done with the AMG-EA high performance electrical architecture, an EV platform that’ll underpin the next generation of AMG performance cars.

First up, those passionate to raw numbers, not noise, should be sated by the headline figures. With a power output equivalent to over 1,360hp, this big four-door GT will never be a slouch.

It won’t be silent, either, for one of the key conceptual elements are exterior speakers integrated into the front headlights. These are designed to emit a ‘driving sound’, using the headlight housing as the speaker cavity, to warn pedestrians and perhaps – perhaps – find some kind of synthetic replacement for the signature AMG growl.

The front end is yet another evolution of the Mercedes grille and headlight set up, this time harking back to an earlier concept, the 2023 Vision One-Eleven, which in turn was inspired by the 1970 C111-II experimental car. Sunset Beam orange paintwork completes the connection.

Whereas these two forebears were low-slung two-seaters, the AMG GT XX is very much designed for four, even if the conceptual interior has a strong racing ethos, complete with bucket seats, five-point harnesses and a F1-style steering wheel.

Orange accents also abound on the interior, which offers up a feisty take on a driver-focused environment, thanks to the aforementioned seats and wheel and a wraparound digital dash consisting of two hi-res screens. The latter are large but not overbearingly so, with a knurled and crest-bearing element in the centre console adding a sculptural touch.

The cleverest tech is reserved for the battery, which uses a new form of direct cooling to maximise both output and input when at the fast charger; Mercedes reckons that 400km of range (nearly 250 miles) can be added in just five minutes. No maximum range was made available, but the company threw out a top speed of around 360 km/h (223 mph), which should raise a bar or two in the industry.

What’s also notable is that the AMG GT XX is something of a looker. Mercedes is no stranger to the oxymoronic idea of the four-door coupé, but this iteration is one of the best, a flowing side profile that culminates in an ultra-neat tail, with three sets of rear lights creating a pleasingly uncomplicated graphic element.

If you need glitz, the MBUX Fluid Light Panel in between them car serve up infinite graphical variations thanks to its 700 programmable LEDs. There’s also no rear screen, taking a leaf out of Polestar’s book, and presumably to maximise the rear seat headroom without losing the fluidity of the roofline.

Other notable elements include the blanked in wheels with their custom white-wall Michelin tyres and the winglets that sit just ahead of the front wheel arch. These aero elements look like they’ve evolved from a Formula 1 car, which was no doubt the intention. In the future, AMG will continue fly the flag for Mercedes-Benz’s sporting ambition, regardless of whether it’s gas or electrons that makes its cars go.

Mercedes-AMG.com, @MercedesAMG

A blistering performance

Sofia de la Cruz, Travel Editor

After months of anticipation, the moment to see Tyler, The Creator perform at the O2 finally arrived for me a couple of nights ago. Currently touring his eighth studio album, Chromakopia, the performance marked the Grammy-winning rapper’s first live appearance in the British capital in six years. Even though the venue was buzzing with a lively crowd dressed in colourful cardigans and snapbacks, our collective energy couldn’t match the force Tyler brought to the stage. The show delivered a spectacle of sharp solo choreography, pyrotechnics, and venom-green strobe lights. Yet, those were just the trimmings. The true magic was all Tyler and his alter egos. One moment, he had us swaying with raw, romantic vulnerability; the next, sparking a frenzy with blistering verses and an irresistible groove.

A colourful collaboration

Jonathan Bell, Transport and Technology Editor

Mercedes teamed up with Swedish designer Gustaf Westman to create a one-off sculptural reinterpretation of the new Mercedes CLA. Replete in a park-like installation in Shoreditch's Protein Studios – a sort of Westman World – the bubblegum pink-coloured car was joined by an assortment of everyday auto-infused objects reimagined by the designer. All this was revealed before an audience of influencers, media types and Merc fanboys and girls, with special cans of Gustaf's Beer to wash it all down. It's all part of the marque’s ‘Class of Creators’ initiative, hoping to pull a younger, more creative audience towards the model.

A lounge-worthy launch

Anna Solomon, Digital Staff Writer

I ventured into London’s design district to see (and sample) Gubi’s F300 chair from Pierre Paulin, which has just launched alongside the brand’s T877 table and a special edition of the 9602 light. Although these pieces were the official occasion, I was also keen to sneak a peek inside the first Gubi House outside of Denmark – an elegant townhouse on the cobbled Charterhouse Square and the perfect showcase for the brand’s cool, contemporary collections.

A space for art supporters

Bill Prince, Editor-in-Chief

This week I toured London’s newest members’ club – accessed through an imposing door that faces directly onto Trafalgar Square. Not there yet? Then let me explain. For the first time, the National Gallery has dedicated a single space for its members and patrons, carved from former curatorial offices on the ground floor of its Wilkins’ Building. Coinciding with the unveiling of a refreshed Sainsbury’s Wing, complete with a new restaurant helmed by Giorgio Locatelli, the new Supporters’ House offers a bar, lounge and dining room designed by New York-based architect Annabelle Selldorf, working with Purcell Architects, with interiors by Studio Linse. A private dining room inspired by Turner’s sunsets sits at the centre of the house, while an intimate salon space will host talks by gallery curators. Coining its own ‘House’ within the gallery is no coincidence: a far cry from traditional ‘members’ rooms’ where friends of an institution can catch their breath over tea and cake, the look and the feel of the place could pass for one of Nick Jones’ early forays into Georgian London landmarks (Soho House debuted in 1995 at 40 Greek Street). Expect sign-ups for membership at Supporters’ House to be brisk.

A café concept with cocktails

Charlotte Gunn, Director of Digital Content

I stopped by a new addition to Portobello Road, Permit Room: Dishoom's all-day café concept. The menu features all the old favourites (the black dahl that everyone over-hypes) and site-specific additions such as snackable chaats and a whole tandoori chicken. Cocktails and light bites are really the focus here – the chai martini hit the spot – and a mix of western and south Asian DJs spin tunes until the early hours. But perhaps most excitingly, for the Americans who flock to the now-famed curry house, there are rooms to rent upstairs.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, bling is best described as ‘ostentatious, flashy, or glorifying conspicuous consumption’. The new Mercedes-Maybach SL 680 could serve as a visual metaphor for all three.

Although the new car’s acoustic exhaust is tweaked to offer a quieter drive, this convertible is visually very loud indeed. The automotive equivalent of a Louis Vuitton handbag, the latest machine from Mercedes’ super-upmarket Maybach division simply can’t help but shout about its luxury credentials.

Revealed in 2024 in Pebble Beach, the marque’s first run of ‘Monogram Series’ cars is liberally plastered in the brand’s double-M logo – literally hundreds of them. Around 400 are daubed on the bonnet alone, with several hundred more making a pop-up appearance on the folding fabric roof.

Some say the venerable SL has suffered from an identity crisis for decades but thanks to Maybach’s overstated design, Mercedes’ open-roof grand tourer will soon be out of therapy for good. The antithesis to a stylish Bentley Continental or Aston Martin DB12 Volante, the new SL 680 is a big V8 cruiser based on the £177,000 Mercedes-AMG SL 63.

A 4.0-litre biturbo engine produces 577bhp and 590lb ft of torque, linked to a nine-speed automatic gearbox and permanent all-wheel drive. Despite a price hike over the SL 63, the £241,000 Mercedes-Maybach is strangely half a second slower from 0-62mph, covering the distance in 4.1 seconds. The ‘noise-optimised’ exhaust probably plays a part in calming things down – plus a luxury grand tourer likely doesn’t need the performance equivalent of a six-pack when it’s swathed in designer labels.

Cruising the coastline of exuberant and upmarket Ibiza, the SL 680 quickly comes into its own. Despite the hugely powerful engine, this is a laid-back convertible that wafts comfortably rather than roaring in anger. You can thank a suspension system that replaces conventional anti-roll bars with a hydraulic set up for the more pliant ride.

There are also four drive settings – Comfort and Maybach offering the smoothest response from the accelerator. Sport makes best use of the V8, while drivers can also tweak the drivetrain to their own personal choice using Individual.

Two Monogram Series cars were on show in the Balearics, both with cabins swathed in Crystal White Nappa leather. Exposed metal is mostly trimmed in chrome, with stainless steel foot pedals and door scuff plates. Mercedes’ MBUX screen technology controls in-car functions, including the very high-end Burmester sound system. Those blinding white leather seats also bear the monogram.

While the rear seats in an SL were effectively limited to extra luggage space or a brace of dogs – think Dachshund not Labrador – Maybach’s designers have sensibly dispensed with them altogether. Instead, aerodynamic double scoops add a more elegant profile.

Elsewhere, Maybach mayhem continues right around the bodywork. The SL is the first Maybach model with a ‘brand-specific’ radiator grille. Perhaps inevitably, the vertical slats are illuminated, while even the rear lights feature a logo, as does the branded exhaust pipe trim.

‘We wanted to surprise, inspire and excite our customers,’ explains Maybach chief, Daniel Lescow. ‘With the SL Monogram Series, we’re offering them the sportiest and most extravagant model we’ve ever created. It’s a true Maybach. In line with the brand philosophy, it offers a holistic, sensual experience.’

A bejewelled expression of modern extravagance, the Maybach SL 680 will be a ‘must have’ in some markets, an accessory that’s more akin to a handbag than a supercar.

Mercedes-Maybach SL 680 Monogram Series, from £241,000, Mercedes-Benz.com, @MercedesMaybach

Mercedes is offering a preview of its upcoming Van Electric Architecture with this luxurious vision of a future MPV. The Vision V Concept sits on the VAN.EA platform and demonstrates the kind of space you can expect inside the next generation of the company’s well-established V-Class range, which takes the limo-like ambience of its high-end passenger cars and applies it to light commercial underpinnings. This currently extends to the Marco Polo compact camper as well as a number of passenger and work vans.

Luxury MPVs are having a moment. Consistently popular in Asian markets, the idea of big van-like spaces with cavernous passenger compartments for as few as two people are gaining traction in Europe and the US. A case in point is the Lexus LM, but there are a host of other models available to supply a rather more discrete chauffeur-driven experience than the classic limousine.

The Vision V certainly goes all-out on interior experience. It’s worth comparing and contrasting with the Viano Vision Diamond, a 2012 design study that represented what was then considered the cutting edge in luxury car interiors. The game has certainly moved on a bit, not least in terms of lighting, materials and screen designs. The Vision Diamond was developed in partnership with Bang & Olufsen, and alongside the acres of quilted white leather there was a 40-inch media screen for the two passengers.

Vision V shows just how much the game has moved on. The multimedia focus is now a 4K 65-inch cinema screen that rises from the floor and can be used in various size configurations, backed up with audio coming out of 42 speakers, equipped with Dolby Atmos, of course. No fewer than seven projectors provide an ‘immersive user experience’. As shown here, this can encompass movies, video conferencing, gaming or even ambient backgrounds to reflect the nature of a journey. The last is enhanced by projections onto the side windows to expand the field of view.

In total, there are seven interactive worlds to explore; entertainment, gaming, work, shopping, discovery, relax and even karaoke. The seats themselves are made from tubular cushions knitted together with aluminium clasps. There are strong hints of the interior developed for the 2022 Project Maybach, the company’s second collaboration with the late designer Virgil Abloh in the seating design, as well as influences from contemporary furniture.

Aside from comfort and tech, the Vision V is all about light, representing the logical conclusion of Merc’s current fixation on ambient interior lighting schemes. Not only do surfaces glow from within but practically every material junction is an opportunity to cram in an concealed LED, creating a dizzying array of options. The central lighting feature wouldn’t be out of place in an art deco palace, whilst the sliding doors contain back-lit dark wood cabinetry containing a profusion of high-end accoutrements.

The latter include transparent speakers, a bespoke bag and a chess set – not the first time the game of kings has surfaced in a luxury auto setting in recent weeks – Rolls-Royce has just revealed its own branded chess set. A pair of ‘freestanding’ speakers flank the cinema screen, enhancing the picture palace vibes created by the lighting and the ‘Crystal’ white Nappa leather and white silk trim. Up front, your driver certainly does lose out on the screen experience, with a dashboard-spanning Superscreen display.

Externally, the Vision V has been sculpted into a pebble-like aerodynamic form with a sharply cut-off tail, marked out by a halo of LED lighting. Short overhangs front and rear make the most of the electric underpinnings and help maximise cabin space, whilst the big Mercedes grille is almost abstracted away to nothing, with just three horizontal bars contained with an oval form.

The new architecture will surface in a range of production vehicles next year. Expect elements like the vast 24-inch wheels to be downsized, as well as a more simplified exterior lighting scheme. The overall form factor should stay remarkably faithful, however. The big question is whether a similarly specified production version of the V-Class could arrive to take over at the very top of the market.

Mercedes-Benz Vision V, concept only, Mercedes-Benz.com, @MercedesBenz

Now that Smart has been fully reborn as a grander, more premium all-electric marque, the next car to emerge from the German-Chinese partnership is this, the Smart #5. Billed as the ‘First-Ever Premium Mid-Size SUV from Smart’, it joins the Smart #1 and Smart #3 to complete a trio of SUVs that will have completely reshaped the brand.

The #5 will come as something of a shock to those used to Smart’s compact, urban-focused past. With rugged styling and off-road accessories like a roof light bar and electric trailer hitch (and the option to install underbody protection, a roof carrier and even a side ladder in Chinese markets), the #5 pitches itself as a bespoke off-roader with a side order of interior quality.

The latter includes aeroplane-style LED reading lights, oak trim, LED ambient lighting and even the ability to transform the seats into a ‘king-size, queen-size, or single sleeping space in the cockpit’. With no less than 34 different storage spots scattered around the cabin, as well as frunk luggage compartment and a sizeable boot, Smart is pitching the #5 as a competent all-rounder.

Three new partners also signal the #5’s multi-functional direction. These include the bespoke Project One bike from American bicycle brand Trek Bikes and ‘The Cave’, a custom version of one of outdoor gear manufacturer Heimplanet’s tents. Finally, there’s Sennheiser, the German audio brand, which has overseen the #5’s 2,000-watt sound system.

Wallpaper* spoke to Kai Sieber, head of design Smart at Mercedes-Benz Design, to talk us through the new model and what it means to scale up a brand that originally intended to make the most pocket-sized cars of all.

Wallpaper*: Tell us the story of the brand’s reboot

Kai Sieber: We switched Smart from being an A-segment car towards the B and C segment and formed a new partnership with Geely. As part of this process, we performed a reset for the brand, which involved a lot of research. For example, the Smart word cloud included things like ‘simple, sweet, kind, and colourful’, which told us it had established itself as a positive, playful brand. As a result, Smart is not against anything – it is about positivity.

W*: What came first, the new approach or the partnership with Geely?

KS: When we did the Fortwo and Forfour, we were working with Renault [the pairing also resulted in the Renault Twingo]. Geely came forward with a platform and joint venture – it is a really excellent platform, a long wheelbase with very short overhangs.

W*: Where did the influences come from for the new design approach?

KS: It was about finding the sweet spot. It was clear that Geely’s new platforms would allow Smart to grow up slightly. More and more cars are alike – you need to find your USP and emphasise it. Our design philosophy was to create emotional, friendly design, inspired by product design and three key criteria: ‘love, pure and unexpected’.

W*: How did these criteria manifest in the new Smart #5?

KS: We have really pure, simple graphics, combined with unexpected elements like the ‘flying roof’. Then there are things like the low poly style of design for the animal assistants.

W*: How does the #5 evolve the Smart brand?

KS: Smart #1 and #3 have an obvious [relationship to old Smart], but #5 is the largest Smart to date. We didn’t have to compromise on space. Although a Smart should always have the same light signature front and rear, we shifted to what I call ‘squaricles’ for Smart #5, an evolution of the triangular forms on #1 and #3. These oblongs are carried through into the interior and create a more utilitarian look. Inside, the passenger has a separate screen, what we call a floating ‘tech island’.

W*: What about the material approach?

KS: Smart also stands for sustainability. With #5, all the touch points are finished in Napa artificial leather. There’s also real wood inside [on the dashboard and door trims]. Even the fabric we’re using on the most basic models is more upscale than #1 or #3.

W*: What’s the plan for selling Smart #5 around the world?

KS: We launched in China in October 2024, and the car will arrive in Europe in 2025. That’ll be followed by the UK, Australia and South America.

Smart #5, coming soon, UK.smart.com, @smart_worldwide

This past weekend, Moncler brought its distinct brand of showmanship to Shanghai, China, erecting what it called ‘The City of Genius’ in which a slew of big-name collaborators – among them the fashion designer Rick Owens, former British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful, and the musicians A$AP Rocky and Willow Smith – presented collections which riffed on the Italian outerwear brand’s history of adventure and innovation.

Part of the ‘Genius’ arm of Moncler, which has drafted numerous co-collaborators to create collections for the label since its advent in February 2018, the accompanying events are akin to enormous immersive exhibitions whereby participants create cinematic ‘worlds’ to display their collections, from foam parties to Space Odyssey-style corridors. In 2023, 10,000 people attended the road-block event at London’s Olympia Exhibition Centre, which included a series of vast installations and a performance from Alicia Keys; this year, 8,000 attended in Shanghai, with an estimated global viewership of 57 million people, according to the brand (helped, no doubt, by a much-reposted appearance from Rihanna, there to support partner A$AP Rocky, who presented a collection at the event).

Future nostalgia: Mercedes-Benz x Moncler by Nigo

One of this year’s more intriguing projects saw Moncler team up in a three-way collaboration with the Japanese fashion designer Nigo and German car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz. Nigo, who is currently the creative director of Kenzo and something of a legend in the streetwear realm having founded A Bathing Ape (Bape) in 1993, created not just a fashion collection for the project, but also an ‘art-piece’ version of the Mercedes-Benz G-Class, reworked from a 1990s model of the distinctive car. Known colloquially as the ‘G-Wagon’ and designed in the 1970s, it is perhaps one of the world’s best-known and culturally ubiquitous vehicles, having appeared in numerous movies, TV shows and music videos (in 1980, it even served as the Popemobile for a time). This launch follows a 2023 collaboration between Moncler and Mercedes-Benz, which debuted at the London ‘Art of Genius’ event and was inspired by the quilted exterior of one of the brand’s puffer jackets.

‘For me, the 1990s were among the most influential decades from a cultural and creative standpoint,’ explains Nigo of the nexus of the design, which is titled ‘Project G-Class Past II Future’. ‘Electronic music and the hip-hop scene arose as a new expression of urban character. I wanted to integrate that vibe and energy into the design by interpreting that legacy for a new contemporary era.’ As such, it features a sound system installation from audio engineer and G-Class enthusiast Devon Turnbull, whereby boom box-style controls and speakers can, like the roof, be removed. Meanwhile, a sharp, minimalistic design is at once nostalgic and futuristic, arriving in a cool palette of silver and olive green, with orange and gold accents, including a golden fuel can. It will not be available for purchase, though it serves as the inspiration for a limited-edition new G-Class model called the ‘Past II Future’, which will be available from April 2025 in a run of just 20.

Revealed against dramatic views of the Shanghai skyline on a rotating platform, ‘Project G-Class Past II Future’ – which also features a quilted roof cover, recalling the first collaboration between Moncler and Mercedes-Benz – was debuted alongside an accompanying fashion collection, which is also rooted in 1990s style (released in April 2025, it will coincide with the release of the G-Class Past II Future model). Taking Nigo’s design signatures – namely playful motifs and badges across varsity silhouettes – the Mercedes-Benz three-pointed star emblem becomes a logo repeated throughout, while vintage Moncler advertising is blown up into the collection’s prints. ‘From the very beginning of the project, we envisioned a three-way collaboration, and I was captivated by the idea of merging two iconic brands – Moncler and Mercedes-Benz – into a cohesive collection,’ Nigo tells Wallpaper*.

Nigo, who likens creating the collection to ‘painting on a canvas’, says that much of the inspiration from the pieces came from Moncler’s ‘rich history’ of the ’outdoors and exploration’. It lends the collection a nostalgic mood, recalling vintage camping and hiking wear in windbreaker and field jackets, checkered shirts and baggy Bermuda shorts, alongside beanie hats and topstitched, workwear-inspired denim. As with all of Nigo’s collections, the result is purposefully eclectic, with the designer hoping that the pieces encourage the wearer to mix and match, and experiment. ‘The pieces are designed to allow the wearer to interpret it in their own way, so they can project their personal style and identity,’ he says. ‘It’s about giving people the freedom to express who they are through the collection, rather than dictating a specific feeling.’

A prolific collaborator – notable partnerships have included a decade-spanning relationship with Pharrell Williams, as well as the late Virgil Abloh – Nigo says that projects like these continue to challenge him over three decades since his career began with the founding of A Bathing Ape. ‘Collaborations are incredibly important [to my work],’ he says. ‘They allow a chance for creative growth and exploration, which [nowadays] can be rare. This one was a chance to step outside my usual boundaries, to experiment with a different side of myself.’

Nigo’s Genius collection will be available April 2025 in Moncler stores and online. The limited-edition Mercedes-Benz G-Class Past II Future will be available the same month.

moncler.com

mercedes-benz.com

Bruno Sacco, former head of design at Mercedes-Benz, has died at the age of 90. One of the pioneers of contemporary auto design, Sacco oversaw Mercedes’ design throughout a period of remarkable achievement and integrity, becoming chief designer in 1975 and remaining at the top of the company's design department until his retirement in 1999.

Born in Udine, Italy on 12 November 1933, Sacco was a young car enthusiast, but his first real engagement with the world of car design was a visit to the 1951 Turin Motor Show, where an industry reborn after the war was demonstrating the full flowering of Italy’s many and varied carrozzeria, or styling houses. However, it was a Raymond Loewy design, the Studebaker Starlight, that piqued his interest. In 1955, he joined Ghia SpA, the Turin-based coachbuilders whose clients at the time included Italian giants like Alfa Romeo and Fiat, as well as Ferrari, Renault and even American companies Dodge and Chrysler.

In 1958 he joined Mercedes as the company’s second design specialist, working under Paul Bracq, the company’s first dedicated car designer in its new Stylistics department. This was an era before in-house design studios existed as we know them today, with stylists working alongside engineers and draftsmen to plot out new body styles. Sacco became involved in practically every model built during this period, including the iconic 230 SL ‘Pagoda’, the monumental 600 limousine and the C 111 experimental safety vehicles, a project he managed from 1969 to 1970.

In 1975, Sacco became head of the Stylistics department, although his title was Oberingenieur, chief engineer. At this point, a Sacco style becomes more evident in the Mercedes DNA, with cars like the W123 estate (the company’s first), demonstrating a simplicity of line and detail that was without unnecessary flourishes or grandiose scale. It helped too that throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Mercedes became renowned for its engineering, innovating with safety systems and creating cars that were as durable and reliable as they were handsome.

Other Sacco classics include the W124 E-Class, the W126 S-Class, with its fantastically elegant SEC coupé variant (Sacco retained an immaculate 560 SEC model in dark blue after his retirement – ‘the best thing I have done for Mercedes-Benz’, he once said), and the innovation Mercedes-Benz 190, the W201 line that took the company into the mass market for the first time. His maxim was similarly understated, ‘a Mercedes-Benz must always look like a Mercedes-Benz’, a simple statement that precluded wild diversions between model generations and promoted the idea of steady, incremental progress.

This attitude also ensured that older models didn’t immediately look out of date, an approach completely at odds with the American system of visually striking but ultimately superficial annual model changes. Observe any Mercedes ‘family grouping’ from the 1970s through to the noughties – E-Class, S-Class, etc – and the lineage is clear.

In 1993, Sacco joined the group of directors, with responsibility for overseeing Mercedes-Benz’s large portfolio of commercial vehicles. His involvement and oversight continued for cars like the compact A-Class, M-Class SUV, small sporting SLK and more, with the final models to receive his insight and input being the W220 S-Class generation, built from 1998 to 2005, with its sister CL-Class coupé, another enduring and elegant classic.

Whilst heading up the design department, Sacco also ensured that the division had the right creative space, initiating the Design Centre in Sindelfingen, designed by Renzo Piano and C Kohlbecker. He retired in March 1999, having devoted practically his entire professional life to the brand.

‘Bruno Sacco left a lasting mark on the company with his iconic designs and his passion for aesthetics,’ Gorden Wagener, current chief design officer of Mercedes-Benz Group AG, says. ‘We have lost an outstanding personality and an impressive aesthete. Our deepest sympathy goes out to his family and friends.’

Mercedes-Benz.com

Mercedes has a sizeable stake in the annual Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the prestige event of Monterey Car Week. Not only does the German brand host a vast pavilion, the Star Lounge, on the site, but the company also takes over one of the grandest rooms in the Pebble Beach Golf Club to serve as its hospitality lounge throughout the weekend. And to cap it off, it flies in some of the most impressive cars from its extensive collection of classics, to drive and exhibit.

As a guest of Mercedes’ Maybach brand, we got to experience this largesse at first hand. Not only did the company unveil a new model, the Mercedes-Maybach SL 680 Monogram Series, it also laid on a fleet of other Maybachs with which to experience one of the world’s greatest roads, the coastal Highway One, and offered up driving experiences in a pair of iconic vintage cars.

Many of the world’s greatest car collections are kept in the US, and many of those live on the West Coast, so Pebble Beach functions as both a crucial social event, a high-profile salesroom for some important auction houses, and a place for manufacturers and collectors alike to establish bragging rights over who owns the best kept and best presented historic automobile. Each year sees a cavalcade of unique machinery, from one-off concept cars to vintage racing machines from every era, and the occasional show-stopper in the form of a reclusive or rediscovered icon making its reappearance on this most glamourous of world stages.

On top of all this, Monterey Car Week is increasingly a place for launches and events, as the mainstream luxury manufacturers and the growing coterie of specialist coachbuilders flock to Northern California to pitch new product to the people most likely to buy it. As well as Mercedes, there was also a sizeable presence from JLR, Rolls-Royce, Cadillac, Maserati, Bugatti, Rivian, Rimac, Lamborghini, and more. All of whom had new things to say and judged that the moneyed atmosphere, amenable climate and rarefied company to be the very best place to present it.

Away from the ticketed events, most of which take place at the exclusive Pebble Beach Golf Course, the narrow tourist-infested streets of Carmel and Monterey echo with the sound of revving engines and crackling exhausts as every supercar, classic and hotrod owner within several hundred miles descends on the coast to show off their wheels. Parking lots are stacked with low-slung rows of polychromatic be-winged ego fluffers. There’s a class element to all this, of course, for Pebble and Quail are exclusive and aloof, expensive to access and with a demographic that skews unashamedly and almost exclusively white. With a few notable exceptions, it's also very, very male.

Much of the on-street action is provided by those who live a world away from the meticulously manicured lawns of Pebble. It’s a distinctly town versus gown situation, with beautifully kept examples of working-class car culture, from low-riders to bikers, extreme hotrods, highly tuned Japanese sports cars and the occasional Cybertruck, providing a counterpoint to the polished precision, timeworn patina and storied histories of Pebble’s old-money exclusivity. Much was made of the fact that Honda's HP-X concept was the Japanese brand's debut appearance on the hallowed Concours greens.

Mercedes was able to march straight into this class-war minefield with nary a thought. That’s because, with well over a century of history and a broad sweep of products that takes in every conceivable demographic and desire, the company can be all things to all people.

There’s the racing pedigree, ably demonstrated by the 1924 Mercedes two-litre Targa Florio race car, making its debut following a complete restoration by Mercedes-Benz Classic. There’s also the stunning C111-II experimental vehicle on hand, a 1970 supercar fitted with a four-rotor Wankel engine.

SL 680 Monogram Series and more from Maybach at Pebble Beach

But we’re here for Maybach, represented not just by the SL 680 – the sub-brand’s first dedicated sports car – but also by the mighty 1932 Maybach Zeppelin DS 8, a titanic Teutonic conveyance that dates from a troublesome era, to put it mildly. Still, nothing could detract from Mercedes-Benz Classic’s meticulous mechanical and physical restoration, the kind of attention to detail that the company is putting into the contemporary Maybach line of enhanced Mercedes passenger cars.

The new SL 680 joins a line up that includes the Mercedes-Maybach GLS, the Mercedes-Maybach S-Class, and the first all-electric Maybach, the Mercedes‑Maybach EQS SUV. We sampled all these cars over the course of our stay in Monterey, either behind the wheel or ensconced within the cocoon-like passenger compartment. They certainly rival their peers for quality and refinement, and there’s a stealthy quality in the way the high-luxury Maybach ethos can be subsumed within a more familiar Mercedes silhouette.

However, Maybach also has a more outrageous conceptual side that hasn’t yet impacted on its production cars. At the 2016 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, the company revealed the 5.7m long Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6, returning the following year with the dramatic droptop Vision Mercedes Maybach 6 Cabriolet. In our opinion, it’s cars like this, along with even more dramatic Project Maybach, a collaboration with the late Virgil Abloh, that attain and exceed the ethos of the brand.

The latter spawned the Maybach by Virgil Abloh, a limited-edition version of the Mercedes-Maybach S-Class. The SL 680 shares a similar ethos, taking a Mercedes ‘base’ model and upgrading every element of it far above what would otherwise be possible. In this case, the headline changes are relatively superficial, chief amongst them the deletion of the (already vestigial) rear seats in favour of a lavishly trimmed white Nappa leather cabin for two, with a surfeit of ‘M’ monograph branding applied, most noticeably to the bonnet. Here is a classic example of the great Venn diagram of craftsmanship, design, wealth and taste at work; where would you place this expertly and carefully monogrammed bonnet within it?

The SL 680 also gets a tweaked 4.0-litre biturbo V8 offering 585hp, smoothly delivered through a 9-speed automatic transmission. Variable all-wheel drive helps traction and dynamic performance. The exhaust note is toned down from its shoutier Mercedes-AMG sibling, but even though the SL 680 is pitched at Monegasque boulevards and the broad highways of the Middle East and not the race track, it’s still a very credible performer. The car's presence is bolstered by big multi-spoke wheels, although it doesn’t quite have the scale and impact of a Maybach SUV or limousine.

The SL 680’s reveal party (but not these desert-retreat press pics) took place on a long LED-screen catwalk set up in the garden of a modernist village on the slopes above Pebble Beach. Designed by San Francisco architect Jim Jennings for a couple of noted contemporary collectors, the 6,700 sq ft house is a symphony of sharp edges in aluminium, stone and glass, albeit rather a sterile exercise. It’s a very different proposition from some of the more vernacular compositions that flank it, even if they’re no less ostentatious in scale and accommodation.

Was it a good fit for Maybach, a company that seems to foreground a very conservative classicism? Sitting in the house’s upstairs sitting, Michael Schiebe, chairman of the board of management of Mercedes, stressed that ‘we’re not just putting a name on a Mercedes. [A Maybach] requires more craftsmanship and technology… customers want a car that’s a statement. It has to differentiate.’ Asked whether there’s a conflict between Maybach’s own highly bespoke editions, like the Monogram Series (and the Virgil Abloh S-Class), and customers’ desire for their own individual specifications, Daniel Lescow, head of Mercedes-Maybach, explained that ‘a lot of customers trust the curated options we offer to them’. ‘We have cooked the perfect dish,’ Schiebe adds.

As the first open two-seater Maybach in the modern era, the Mercedes-Maybach SL680 Monogram Series doesn’t share much design DNA with the mighty Zeppelin parked out front at the villa. Yet there’s a shared ethos of wealth and status, one that a casual observer might struggle to understand.

Pebble Beach sees America tipped on edge so that the finest and wealthiest aspects of its elaborate car culture roll west for the weekend. From the ritual ‘Dawn Patrol’ experience of watching the various concours classes driving themselves onto the Pacific-front greens of the Pebble Beach Golf Club on the Sunday morning, to the glamorous branded villas and pavilions, it’s a place where money meets, old and new.

Everyone's an expert at Pebble, ready with a little bit of trivia to hand or a personal connection or name drop they can trot out to impress or ingratiate. As a result, it's a mansplainer’s paradise, and men exchange muttered half-remembered stats and facts and model names to each other and anyone within earshot. Drones buzz overhead as snippets of outlandish conversational oneupmanship drift past. 'I have a lot of friends who are precision stunt drivers.’ 'Have you driven the new Corvette. It's over a 1,000 horsepower without turbochargers... such amazing value compared to a Ferrari.’

The traditionalists have their rituals and uniform, with picnic blankets spread out at 5.30am, a sea of Panama hats and 'dawn patrol' caps, doled out for free by golf course lackies who are instantly swarmed when they start handing them out. Here you’ll find the upper echelons of America's incredibly skewed social strata, showing cars that are family heirlooms, passed down through generations. Yet there are also cars that are precious investments, cars that form a priceless part of a company's heritage and identity, one-offs, both famed and infamous, and lost icons rediscovered.

Among the grand old American families, you’ll find car bros, classic car bros, tech bros and finance bros, alongside Hollywood A-listers, influencers, investors and collectors, and the lucky scrum of media in possession of the correct set of wristbands. Perhaps this is where new money comes to be converted into old, filtered through the 140-year-old cult of the automobile, shoring up the gates and walls of the establishment in the process. In order for the SL 680 to grace the lawns of Pebble 2124, the established order will inevitably have to change.

Mercedes-Maybach SL 680 Monogram Series, available from spring 2025, Mercedes-Benz.com

PebbleBeachConcours.net

Driving a Mercedes G-Wagen is always an event. The 45-year-old off-roading 4x4 is unquestionably an automotive icon and little changed in its basic chunky visual silhouette, whether you drive, as Wallpaper* did, both an internal combustion-engined 1980 version and a fully-electric 2024 model, from the range now more formally known as G-Class. In fact, the new model's full name is the 'Mercedes-Benz G 580 with EQ Technology'.

The G 580 is the first electric Mercedes G-Class

Behind the wheel of the original, during the first part of our on-road test, school kids clocked its boxy difference, smiled and thumbed for a lift, while elsewhere slightly shady characters down side roads gave it approving nods to make this (temporary) driver feel pretty special. It’s all down to its angular and robust Tonka toy-truck vibe, which suggests it has the ability to go anywhere. 

Since its early utilitarian and military beginnings, the G-Wagen has been able to do just that, through a combination of solid engines, low-ratio gears, generous wheelarches, good ground clearance and sensible front-and-back underbody ‘departure’ angles. 

In later decades, that functional aesthetic also found favour with those less inclined to seek out remote rocky inclines, but still keen on sitting within a vehicle that projected strength, capability and presence in urban settings. Mercedes responded by providing more (often V8) power and AMG performance and increasingly luxurious interiors, in line with the wider brand’s range. 

But despite that widening appeal (and increased prices), a city-dwelling G-Wagen driver could also rile some onlookers who viewed the petrol-hungry, big-engined protective cars as less than eco-conscious and also potentially aggressive (despite the occasional high-profile fashion collaboration – see the Mercedes-Benz x Moncler art piece).

So in some ways, the all-electric variant of the new G-Wagen provides a partial antidote. Although similarly as fast and powerful as its AMG V8 sibling – the G 580 offers a 4.7sec 0-62mph time and 587hp – it is zero-emission in use and also quiet, unless the driver wants a little artificial engine roar piped into the cabin. It’s also just as capable off-road, able to traverse genuine rocks and boulders up steep slopes and down trails that drivers of all but the most well-equipped 4x4s would not dream of tackling.

It’s also easier to take on that terrain in the electric G-Wagen. Once the Rock driving mode has been selected and Low-Range off-road gear selection made, the car automatically gets on with things by itself bar the steering, although even that activity is enhanced through the G-Steering function, which slows the inside turning wheel, while speeding up the outside ones to make tight bends simpler. 

For driver (and passenger) reassurance, there’s also a Transparent Bonnet function that shows, via 360-degree view cameras, the terrain that can’t otherwise be seen under the car – especially useful at extreme off-road angles – via real-time video on the centre touchscreen – allowing the driver to steer more clearly.

Another EV-specific gadget on the G 580 that is funny as well as functional is the G-Turn feature. With four individually controlled electric motors, the G 580 is able to power the left-hand front and back wheels in the opposite direction to its right-hand equivalents and thus easily turn 360 degrees – on suitably loose gravel surfaces – almost on the spot (or through 720 degrees if you fancy). 

A bit like an enthusiastic metallic dog that wants nothing more than to chase its tail, this quick and literal turnaround is also handy for getting out of tight spots off-road too. A note to future G 580 owners wanting to show off this trick in car parks or elsewhere, though: Mercedes’ engineers caution against trying this manoeuvre on stickier tarmac surfaces to avoid tyre damage.

On-road, the G 580’s driving manners are decent, despite high sides, ground clearance, a still bluff frontage and massive three-tonne-plus weight (due to carrying around a hefty 116kWh battery pack). Racing around for longer periods will dent the maximum 294-mile electric range, but its prodigious power and acceleration easily allow the G 580 to keep ahead of fast-moving motorway traffic or weave down winding roads with ease. 

All this is helped by a high driving position and its downward-sloping bonnet and trademark light markers on each corner. This is a good thing, as for the most part, the G 580 will be used as a highly comfortable cruiser that happens to be able to ford rivers and climb mountains, rather than one that actually does.

As such, the G 580 is a bit like an over-engineered and extremely pricey diver’s watch that seldom goes swimming. But there’s still a joy to the G-Wagen driving experience and looking out at others (mainly) admiring it, while knowing that it could still go anywhere, now with the benefit of better software and infotainment and zero emissions at the tailpipe.

Mercedes G-Wagen Edition One launch vehicle, from £180,860, Mercedes-Benz.co.uk, Mercedes-Benz.com

Everatti was one of the first companies to capitalise on the market for electrified classic cars. From a selection of Porsches to Land Rovers and Range Rovers, the UK-based outfit builds its EVs with care and attention, lavishly upgrading and restoring interiors and mechanical components. 

Everatti’s electric Mercedes-Benz SL

This is Everatti’s newest project, a conversion of the timelessly elegant W113 Series Mercedes SL from the 1960s. Dubbed the ‘Pagoda’ model because of the concave curve of the hardtop roof, the appellation has stuck for all models of this series. 

Everatti will take your donor car and transform it with the installation of its proprietary electric powertrain. This consists of a 54kWh battery and e-motor providing the equivalent of 300 bhp (the original made about 150 bhp the old-fashioned petrol-powered way). 

The standard battery will take the SL about 160 miles, although a larger Touring battery (68kWh) ups this to a respectable 200 miles, plus a sub-7.0 second sprint to 60 mph (the 1960s original got there in a leisurely 10.5 seconds). So far, so good in terms of overall improvements, but Everatti goes much further. 

Each build is essentially a ground-up restoration, with freshly upholstered Bridge of Weir leather seats, subtly uprated dials that show important range info using the original aesthetic, and extras like Bluetooth audio and heated seats.

Transforming classics in this way is still relatively contentious and some firms will ensure the works are reversible should some future collector desire the original spec. Naturally, some cars should remain sacrosanct, such as the one-offs with a value equivalent to great to works of art. On the other hand, Mercedes built nearly 50,000 W113 SLs between 1963 and 1971, so there are still plenty of sound original cars to go around.  

If you want classic style with the quiet convenience of a fast-charging EV, with compact, eternally graceful lines, then Everatti’s Mercedes-Benz SL is without equal, at a price.

Mercedes-Benz SL by Everatti, from £330k, plus tax and donor car, Everatti.com, @EverattiCars

Over the past couple of decades, specialist car restorers have been admitted into the luxury pantheon. Such outfits have always existed, even at the top tier of the classic car investment market, but these days there are companies capable of transforming once prosaic or overlooked models – Vigilante’s Jeep models or Nardone’s Porsche 928 – into true luxury machines. That’s before we’ve got into the many, many EV convertors out there, from Everrati, to Inverted and David Brown Automotive. 

This is a fresh example of the former. Expedition Motor Company is a New Jersey outfit, founded by Alex Levin. The company specialises in transforming the original Mercedes G-Wagen, or Geländewagen, a long-running model that started off as a specialist contract for the German military and eventually evolved into a slice of brutalist urban chic.

EMC White Wolf G-Wagen

EMC eschews the over-stuffed pretentions of the current model – now known as the G-Class – in favour of the stripped-back simplicity of the earliest models. Compact by modern standards, the original model is now a cult car. EMC ramps up the quality and longevity. Its most recent creation, the White Wolf model shown at the top of the page, is a radically overhauled version of a 1990 250 GD Wolf model. 

The 'Wolf' appellation indicates the car was originally built for military use. EMC has a yard full of camo-painted Geländewagens, decommissioned canvas-topped trucks that it will eventually spec up to create this Cali-cruiser.

The restoration process is exhaustive. It takes over 2,000 hours to strip the military surplus machine back to nuts and bolts, before the chassis, body and engine and meticulously refurbished, uprated and reassembled. EMC’s body of choice is a two-door, four-seater convertible – also shown here in a Gulf Blue example.

Once every nut and bolt has been taken apart and refurbished, EMC rebuilds the G-Wagen from the ground up, using a mix of original components and brand-new parts. This includes a specially developed suspension system that arguably makes the EMC models even more agile than the originals.  

Perhaps surprisingly, the G-Wagen’s original engine is retained, along with the manual transmission. Mercedes’s five-cylinder diesel engine might be rowing against the current of popular sentiment, but it is undeniably powerful and reliable, ensuring that the White Wolf remains a hugely capable off-roader. 

Functionality is paramount. The front windscreen can be folded down, as per the original specification, and trim is heavy duty wipe-clean vinyl, rather than leather. Other elements are bespoke, such as the wooden cupholders and storage tray.

‘The EMC Wolf features military durability and iconic design, but the best part is that these trucks are so versatile,’ says Levin. ‘An EMC truck can go anywhere and handle just about any terrain with ease. These trucks can serve as the ultimate beach cruiser while also being fully capable of traversing a winding mountain road without hesitation.’

Expedition Motor Company trucks start at $165,000, ExpeditionMotorCompany.com

In recent years, shows like the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and even Salone del Mobile in Milan have picked up the slack left by the mass abandonment of the traditional global auto show. With design and tech considered to be an integral part of private mobility, the halls at CES 2024 were unsurprisingly alive with new concepts for ways of keeping us safely entertained and informed while driving.

As a result, there was an increased focus on ways in which AI and autonomy could be used to make cargo hauling and deliveries much more efficient. Here are some of the many ways in which AI will find its way into our future dashboards, as well as visions of the cars themselves.

CES 2024: future mobility and AI

Volkswagen makes a date with ChatGPT

Volkswagen was one of several manufacturers making bold claims about how AI integration into future cars is going to reshape the way we use voice recognition and receive information. The company has worked with tech partners Cerence Inc to develop a ‘uniquely intelligent, automotive-grade ChatGPT integration’.

The first cars to use VW’s IDA voice assistant should appear later in 2024, and will include the ID range of electric cars, as well as the latest generation of the Tiguan, Passat and Golf – the GTI Concept of which is shown here. The intention is to imbue cars with the same high-quality of voice recognition as Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant, fine-tuning the system to make it specific to the model, location and context. 

Volkswagen.com

Low-impact logistics with Kia’s PBV System

Kia unleashed a collection of five new electric vehicles, all of which use the same modular system. The Platform Beyond Vehicle (PBV) debuted as the Concept PV7, PV5 and PV1, with the former and latter representing the largest and smallest manifestation of the approach, and the PV5 represented by three different iterations. All are initially aimed at commercial buyers, with potential applications including robotaxis, last mile delivery and larger logistics operations.

There might also be potential passenger versions further down the line. The simple form language was driven by the need to maximise interior space and access, with lots of bio plastic, paint and recycled fabric, felt and yarns used in the interior.

Kia.com

Hyundai gets ever closer to take-off

Kia’s parent company Hyundai also had news, leading with the debut of the latest iteration of its proposed eVTOL craft, the Supernall S-A2. This five-seater (pilot plus four passengers) is part of an ongoing programme to reshape all aspects of urban mobility and find a reliable, efficient and safe replacement for the conventional helicopter.

The company also made some major strategic tech announcements. Chief amongst them was the news that Hyundai – a multinational conglomerate capable of building everything from elevators to oil tankers – is developing large-scale green hydrogen production methods, as well as ways to ‘transform environmental pollutants into clean hydrogen’. 

Hyundai also launched its ‘Software-defined Everything’ (SDx) strategy, effectively detaching software development from automotive hardware to allow each to be independently updated. Naturally, AI plays a role, with the company’s own Large Language Model (LLM) forming the basis of a new in-car assistant and navigation system, as well as open-source kits for third-party apps. 

Hyundai.com

Re-setting the EV with Honda’s 0 Series concepts

The art of the concept car was alive and well on the Honda stand with the announcement of a new ‘0 Series’ of electric cars to be sold around the world. The first Honda 0 Series models will go on sale in North America in 2026 and were previewed here by two concepts, the elegant Saloon and Space-Hub. The latter is a spacious people mover, with a fashion lounge-style interior, while the Saloon is especially sleek machine that promises to blend an ultra-efficient electric powertrain with exceptional efficiency.

The core values are ‘Thin, Light and Wise’, indicating that more manageable EVs are finally coming down the pipeline – a fitting approach for the ‘zero’ reset these cars represent. The company also debuted a new logo, or ‘H’ mark, for the first time since 1981. Besides their genuinely appealing looks, the two concepts should integrate Honda’s sophisticated automated driving system (available in the second half of the decade) and have long-life batteries thanks to sophisticated software management. 

When the Space-Hub finally makes it to production, expect the stark minimalism of the interior to be toned down somewhat, although there’ll still be generous and configurable space. More dubiously, Honda says that the 0 Series will use AI and big data to ‘learn the user’s preferences, such as music, as well as a driver’s behaviours and tendencies while driving, and … make various suggestions’. Modern cars that know you well are an inevitable sign of things to come. 

0.Honda

Music and more from Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz unveiled a clutch of innovations at CES 2024, starting with the announcement of a new, AI-powered virtual assistant. The company is making much of the power of its new user interface, which will debut in this year’s new CLA model (based on last year’s CLA Concept). The MB.OS infotainment system is an evolution of the dashboard-wide screens that arrived with the company’s first EQ models a couple of years ago, only now they have a generative AI assistant that’s said to offer a ‘hyper-personalised user experience’. No longer will you endlessly have to repeat ‘Hey Mercedes’ to get the car to do a simple task.

Mercedes also unveiled a collaboration with Will.i.am, having invited the musician and occasional tech entrepreneur to create something a little different for the Mercedes-AMG performance sub-brand. Sound Drive is the result, an interactive instrument that uses sensors and software to ‘turn the car into an instrument’. Think of it as an evolution of the endlessly generative music originally developed for video games, making it one more step along the road to the gamification of travel. 

Mercedes-Benz.com

BMW introduces a world of in-car entertainment

BMW hopes that the ninth iteration of its in-car Operating System will have as much impact as the original iDrive did when it was introduced back in 2001. BMW OS9 is yet another implementation of a large language model (LLM) in an automotive context, although BMW has gone straight to the top with the use of Alexa’s LLM. Other new features include the future AR Ride, an augmented reality-based navigation system (developed with XREAL) that overlays navigation content onto the driver’s AR glasses.

In addition, there was the introduction of BMW Digital Premium, essentially giving passenger’s access to third party apps like music, audio and gaming (the latter using regular gaming controllers) – all of which will be a boon for anyone lucky enough to use the massive rear screen in the back of the BMW i7. Finally, a very American application for computer-controlled driving tech was also on display; remote control valet parking. 

BMW.com

Sony Honda Mobility update the Afeela EV

In 2023, a surprise hook-up was unveiled in the form of Sony-Honda Mobility. The new company showed off its first product, the Afeela, with no hint of any production viability or timescale. The Afeela was back for CES 2024, suitably upgraded with fresh collaborations with Qualcomm (for computing power) and Microsoft (for, you guessed it, AI integration).

All this silicon is intended to give the car more of a personality and purpose, with screens and sensors aplenty. There are no distinct visual changes – the Afeela is still an elegant, smooth super saloon – but plenty of questions about how well the worlds of big data and big mobility are going to play together when the time comes, and what it means for the humble consumer who just wants to go from A to B with minimum fuss. 

SHM-Afeela.com

Harman shakes up screen design 

American car component manufacturer Harman (owned by Samsung since 2017) used the show to highlight innovations in interior design and information screens. The company’s new Ready Display is available in a number of different sizes, including a curved format, and uses Samsung’s Neo QLED technology for high res, rich colour graphics. It also showed the SeatSonic system, a way of integrating audio into the structure of a seat to enhance the listening experience. 

Car.Harman.com

Bosch and Amazon unite to fight inefficiency

In yet another example of a technological innovation that generates more questions than answers, industry super supplier Bosch announced a partnership with Amazon Web Services to track drivers' eye movements in order to predict and pre-empt their needs. 

The system could well be another example of Amazon’s habit of trialling labour-saving devices on its long-suffering workforce, as the first customers are predicted to be its own fleet of delivery drivers. Some of the proffered stats are alarming – in Bosch’s native Germany, ‘more than 150 million [cargo vehicle] trips are empty runs, which adds up to more than 6.5 billion empty kilometres annually, or more than 160,000 unnecessary journeys around the Earth.’

Amazon is certainly making a dent in these figures with its ongoing partnership with Rivian; the company now has 10,000 of the unique EV vans on its US fleet, with a commitment to electrify its entire delivery fleet of 100,00 vehicles by 2030. Germany is the most recent market to receive these machines, designed specifically for Amazon by the Californian EV maker. Rivian, best known for its R1T pick-up truck, is now offering the bespoke EV van to all buyers as the Rivian Commercial Van.  

Bosch-Mobility.com, AboutAmazon.com, Rivian.com

Start your engines – a new collaboration between Chitose Abe’s offbeat Japanese fashion label Sacai and Mercedes-AMG is revealed today, ahead of the Las Vegas Grand Prix which takes place on the neon-lit streets of Sin City this Saturday at 10pm local time (18 November 2023). 

The collection, designed by Abe alongside the AMG team – AMG is the high-performance subsidiary of Mercedes-Benz, which competes as part of the F1 calendar – draws inspiration from the ‘Red Pig’, the playfully nicknamed Mercedes-Benz 300 SEL 6.8 AMG, AMG’s first racing car. 

First look: Sacai x AMG

A blueprint for the Mercedes-Benz S Class that would follow, the 1971-built car debuted at the ‘24 Hours of Spa’ endurance race where, despite being a full-size sedan, it nonetheless ’against all odds’ finished in second place – an underdog story which has gone down in racing lore.

It provides the perfect starting point for Abe, whose work at Sacai has been defined by the fusing together of often idiosyncratic elements and materials into singular hybrid garments (for example, a trench coat might be melded with a puffer jacket, a walking-style sandal with a towering rubber sole). Much of this expertise is derived from her experience as a pattern-cutter for Rei Kawakubo and time spent as part of the Junya Watanabe design team, while her hybrid approach has also seen Sacai collaborate with a slew of other brands and figures – from Ghetto Gastro to Nike.

‘Our approach to design with purpose at Sacai is to always explore the quintessential forms and create something new,’ she explains. ‘The purest intention is to start from the archetype, which also applies to collaborations, working with the original and the best in its respective fields.’

Here, this results in a performance wear-rooted collection that spans racing-style overalls – adorned with the vintage-inspired Sacai AMG logo – alongside patch-and badge-covered varsity jackets, blousons and T-shirts. Mercedes-AMG says the collection was an ‘intellectual exercise’ in combining both parties’ distinct design philosophies and codes. The collection is available in AMG Speed City in Las Vegas from from now until 17 November 2023 and on nordstrom.com.

But that’s not all – for full Sacai x AMG immersion, Abe has also collaborated with AMG on a special car ’wrap’ in mirrored chrome – giving the somewhat unique opportunity to match your outfit to your car (though sadly, the one-off wrap is not currently available for sale). It also features a series of badges and embossed shapes which mimic those found in the collection itself.

‘[It’s] innovative, disruptive and unique,’ says Michael Schiebe, Mercedes-AMG’s CEO of the project. ‘AMG and Sacai sit at the intersection of luxury and performance in their respective fields, and we are thrilled to see the collaboration come to life in a way that feels authentic to both brands’ DNA.’

The collection is available in AMG Speed City in Las Vegas from now until 17 November 2023 and on nordstrom.com.

sacai.jp
mercedes-amg.com

So you want to be an Instagram star? Consider investing in a vintage Fiat 500 Jolly beach car. An adorable sky-blue model from 1959, with wicker seats and an open roof, went up for auction at this year’s Zoute Sale in Knokke-Heist, Belgium. Prior to the sale, it took a few last trips through town, as delighted bystanders smiled, waved, and snapped photos galore.

The beach community known as Knokke Le Zoute was having one of the year’s busiest weekends, thanks to the annual Zoute Grand Prix, a four-day high-end car, art, and lifestyle festival in early October that includes a BonhamsCars auction of vintage and classic cars, an exhibition of new top-of-the-line contemporary cars, a three-day classic car rally, and a GT tour.

Buckle up for the Zoute Grand Prix

The Fiat Jolly had competition for attention – seemingly every other car on the road that weekend was a collector’s item, and the quiet atmosphere was punctuated by the muscular growl of revving engines. At the luxury La Réserve hotel, teenage boys, ‘car spotters’, circled the parking lot, cameras in hand. A particularly excited group gathered to photograph a Bugatti Chiron with German plates. One spotter, from Luxembourg, explained that an alert about the car had gone out on social media. ‘You don’t see many like this,’ he said, kissing his fingers appreciatively.

But fine cars are never an unusual sight here; even a young woman working in the hotel lobby pulled out her phone to show off her family’s two Porsches. Asked whether anyone here drives a Subaru, she just laughed. ‘This is Knokke.’

Commonly referred to as Belgium’s Saint-Tropez, Knokke-Heist was settled at the beginning of the 20th century by three families who catered to British tourists by building a golf course, tennis courts, stables, and white villas with red tile roofs. 

Today, Knokke counts 33,000 inhabitants and 110,000 owners of second homes. Name a monarch or billionaire, and he (or she) is probably here. People are drawn not only by the favourable tax code, but also by 11km of sandy beach, high-end shopping, Michelin-starred restaurants, and a thriving art scene. The town’s art deco casino boasts an astonishing 360-degree mural by Belgian Surrealist René Magritte, measuring 70m wide by 7m tall (soon to be restored as part of a major facelift by TAB Architects and Barozzi Veiga).

The town contains 90 art galleries in just two square kilometres. Perhaps its most prestigious dealer is Guy Pieters, the Belgian son of a house painter who opened his first gallery in Knokke in 1981, knowing he would find collectors nearby. One of his longtime artists is Wolfgang Volz, Christo’s exclusive photographer, who was in town to show his photos of the wrapped Arc de Triomphe. ‘I didn’t know how to spell Knokke,’ said Volz. ‘Now I’ve had about five solo exhibitions here.’

Another artist in Knokke for the weekend was Princess Delphine of Belgium, only recently recognised as part of the royal family after her father, King Albert II, was obliged by the courts to take a DNA test. She drove the last leg of the auto rally in a BMW 507 roadster (lent by BMW from its heritage fleet), just like the one Elvis Presley acquired when doing his military service in Germany. 

Female drivers were definitely a minority in the Zoute Rally, which attracted 250 historic cars and typically has a waiting list. A woman named Patricia, from Antwerp, took the wheel of a red 1963 Jaguar E-Type, while her male partner navigated. When asked why she got to drive, she smiled: ‘Because it’s my car.’

The Zoute Grand Prix was founded in 2010 by two brothers, Filip and David Bourgoo, who owned an Audi-Bentley dealership. Believing that motor shows had grown too big and no longer attracted the right people, they displayed a new car in central Knokke, in front of the Louis Vuitton boutique. Sensing an opportunity, Ferrari asked them to build a marquee for its new products. Other brands followed. ‘Ten years ago, we had to beg to sell cars in Knokke,’ said Filip. ‘Now they’re queuing.’

Collector’s items, contemporary and classic

Visitors paid €75 for a ticket to enter the Grand Prix’s two beachside pavilions. In the Prado Zoute pavilion, 21 car manufacturers showed their latest models, from the Lamborghini Revuelto to the Ferrari Purosangue four-seater. Around half were electric. The car drawing the biggest crowds was the fully electric Rolls-Royce Spectre that customers had just started receiving that very week. The beautiful beast weighed 3 tonnes, with a choice of 44,000 paint colours, and a price tag of €525,000. Product expert Ed Drake said that the car’s bespoke road sound (to alert pedestrians to its presence) was recorded by an orchestra imitating the sound of a Rolls-Royce accelerating.  

Tucked away among the collector cars was the new Rimac Nevera, the young Croatian brand’s first commercial automobile, which has set the record as the world’s fastest electric production car: 0-100 km/h in 1.81 seconds. Brand manager Bernard Van Bellingen said they sold one car this year – a special version, to a buyer in Belgium, for €2.4 million – and that the year’s second sale ‘will arrive’.

There are cars that people drive, and those that sit pretty. The latter, 96 collector cars, were on display in the Zoute Gallery pavilion. Many had barely ever touched asphalt. All of them hit the block on Sunday at BonhamsCars’ tenth annual Zoute Sale, which has quickly become one of the world’s most important auctions of rare collection cars. Ruinart Champagne flowed freely, poured by servers in Magritte-inspired bowler hats. 

Several cars (notably supercars and hypercars), sold for close to one million euros or more, receiving audience applause each time they hit the milestone. An immaculate 2014 Porsche 918 Spyder with less than 400km on the odometer doubled its bottom estimate to reach €1.2 million. ‘Who woulda thought?’ said the auctioneer, Maarten ten Holder, managing director of BonhamsCars, as it blew past one million.

Surprising rarities included a 1997 SAAB EX prototype, a one-of-a-kind car made for the company’s 50th anniversary. A collection of eight different Aston Martins from 2010 were all painted the same tangerine orange colour – a special request by the original owner. A 1956 Bentley S-Type Continental was formerly driven by Helmut Newton. And a 1998 Aston Martin DB7 Volante once cradled J.Lo’s bottom in her ‘Love Don’t Cost a Thing’ music video. Love may be cheap, but this car ended up being a steal at just over €40,000.

The star of the sale was a stunning beige 1959 Ferrari 250 GT ‘Tour de France’ with all original parts, owned for 37 years by Swiss racing driver Plinio Haas. It went for slightly below its estimate, €4.83 million (including premium), to a North American client, pushing the day’s total sales to more than €27 million, a record for BonhamsCars.

And the little blue Fiat Jolly? After a round of lively bidding, it sold for an impressive €155,250 to a bidder from the United Arab Emirates.

Zoute Grand Prix, ZouteGrandPrix.be, Cars.Bonhams.com

Camper vans – including the new breed of electric camper vans – have never been more fashionable, and as their star rises, so too do the expectations of a new generation of wannabe van lifers, eager for the open road but not so hot on giving up amenities. Away from the endless variation and individuality of the custom and self-build market, there is still a lot of choice, as established companies make the most of booming interest. Here are four campers, concepts and one-offs that showcase the current state of the art.

Volkswagen California Concept

The Volkswagen California Concept is practically identical to the production version of the company’s core camper offering. The California sits below the Grand California and the forthcoming official ID.Buzz Camper, but it’s the model with the most direct lineage to the original T2 campervan of the 1950s. The concept previews the 2024 model, the seventh-generation California, which will also have a plug-in hybrid option and replace the current California 6.1.

The main update is the addition of a sliding door on each side, allowing the interior to be completely opened up with in-built awnings providing shade and shelter. Slightly larger than its predecessor, it combines the practicality of a passenger van with all the accoutrements of a camper, with swivelling front seats, a kitchen layout that can be accessed from inside and outside, and an aluminium-framed pop-up roof structure with windows, lighting and power. 

The concept also showcases a new touch-screen ‘camper van control unit’, which gives info on all the van’s systems, water levels, etc., and operates the roof and entertainment.

Volkswagen California Concept, concept only, seventh generation California available 2024, Volkswagen-Vans.co.uk

Citroën Type Holidays

This one-off model was presented by Citroën at the recent Düsseldorf Caravan Show. Although the retro-inspired ‘Type Holidays’ won’t make it to production, it heralds a revamped campervan line-up that’ll be available from 2024. The Type Holidays is a modern iteration of the company’s fabled H Van commercial vehicle, nearly half a million of which were built up until 1981 (many survivors have since been resprayed, filleted and refitted for new lives as upmarket coffee kiosks).

Working alongside the Italian coachbuilder Caselani, which has been creating old-school body styles on existing Citroën platforms for several years, the Type Holidays recreates the slab-sided corrugated metal appeal of the original. It comes complete with a bespoke interior and the all-important pop-up roof.

In addition to working with Caselani, Citroën tapped Slovenian camper specialist Bravia Mobil to kit out the concept. Underneath it all is a Citroën SpaceTourer, with a flexible interior layout, including four berths, a kitchenette and dining table, that’ll soon be available for sale. 

Citroën Type Holidays, concept only, Citroën.co.uk

Ford Transit Custom Nugget

The Nugget is the esoteric name for Ford’s Transit and Tourneo-based campervans, turning these trusty commercial vehicles into compact homes from home. For 2024, the company has used the most recent generation of the Transit to create a camper that’s also plug-in hybrid for the first time.  With space for four in the tilt-roof model, the Nugget blends Ford’s legendary reliability with camping know-how from Westfalia.

The result is a well-equipped machine awash with options, from a solar roof to all-wheel drive, as well as a car-like dashboard and a full suite of driver assistance options. The multi-zone living space has storage in every available nook and cranny, with an L-shaped kitchen, fridge, hob and sink, as well as a tailgate-mounted shower. 

Ford Transit Custom Nugget, available soon, Ford.co.uk

Mercedes-Benz V-Class Marco Polo

Not to be outdone, Mercedes unveiled its new V-Class Marco Polo at Düsseldorf. Marco Polo is the company’s in-house campervan range, complementing the huge number of industry specialists who use Mercedes’ commercial vehicles as the basis for bespoke RVs and mobile homes. As well as the compact V-Class, Mercedes also revealed the Marco Polo Module to transform its smaller T-Class van into a micro-camper (previewed by the recent Concept EQT).

The Marco Polo has been a cut above the ordinary, taking the Mercedes luxury touch to the campsite. Features include the Mercedes-Benz Advanced Control (MBAC) interface module, a touch-screen control system, and special AIRMATIC suspension that can level the van when parked up on uneven ground. 

Mercedes-Benz V-Class Marco Polo, available soon, Vans.Mercedes-Benz.com

With roots dating all the way back to 1886, Mercedes-Benz is no stranger to change in the motoring world. After more than 130 years of perfecting the combustion engine, the carmaker is now battling through its greatest challenge yet as it continues the transition to electric. Now on its eighth battery electric vehicle, Mercedes has brought the fight to one of the most populated segments in the car industry – the medium-sized family SUV. 

Mercedes EQE SUV

Wading into battle with the Mercedes EQE SUV – the taller, high-riding version of the EQE saloon that launched last year – the marque is targeting the likes of the BMW iX, Audi Q8 e-tron and the forthcoming Lotus Eletre, at least in price if not always performance and proportions. 

The entry-level 350 and more powerful 500 EQE SUV claim a range of 334 and 321 miles respectively. While that isn't enough to secure its spot in the top ten longest-range EVs on the market, it's not too far off. With enough battery on board to comfortably cover off a 250-mile dash, factoring in the typical EV range depletion, the EQE SUV is well suited to long drives. Hooked up to a 170kW charger, it can charge from 0-80 per cent in just 32 minutes, even though finding such a high-voltage charger can still be a challenge.

Visually, the Mercedes design team has given the marque's new electrified models a similar, rounded shape and aesthetic identity. Part influenced by the need for a more aerodynamic shape to improve efficiency, part Mercedes design language, the result is an inoffensive, solid and sleek-looking SUV that won’t look out of place either on city streets or country lanes. However, while Mercedes’ EQ range might sit well together visually, the design language makes it a struggle to tell them apart out on the road. 

When it comes to performance, the EQE SUV is surprisingly sprightly given its 2.6-tonne weight and lofty proportions. With much of the weight down low, it handles better than its looks suggest, and on straight sections, the range-topping 500 4MATIC will cover off the 0-62mph dash in just 4.9 seconds. The AMG Line Premium Plus specs come equipped with rear-wheel steering, which helps mask the Mercedes' proportions and weight in tight city streets and when parking. For most family users, the quiet and comfortable ride matters most. Breezing along on either a motorway or backroad, there's very little noise inside the cabin, which is just as well given the investment Mercedes has made into the interiors of its electrified fleet. 

With the car sharing the same highly detailed graphics and UX as other cars in the range, there’s the option to spec Mercedes' Hyperscreen – an £8,000 extra – that transforms the dashboard into a 141cm wide digital display. Those looking for a digital detox in the cabin should steer clear, while others will be keen to claw at the sheer size of it and scroll through the various features ranging from mood lighting and navigation to an augmented-reality heads-up display and the usual host apps. 

Away from the dash, there's a range of materials that include recycled plastics, such as floormats made from fishing nets and carpet scraps, metals, leather and even 'ship's deck open-pore walnut wood', should you desire. The EQE SUV's interior is impactful, laden with tech and novel features such as a range of comfort modes complete with in-seat massages, accompanied by sounds and smells. It’s a pleasant place to pass the time and spacious enough to carry four adults in comfort.  

There's no shortage of technology on the EQE SUV, most of which sets it apart from the comparatively modest competition. While it fares well in terms of features offered, it's the EQE SUV's £90,000 starting price that could prove to be a sizeable sticking point for most people. Price aside, the EQE is another well-rounded and hugely comfortable electric contender from one of the world's oldest car makers. With the whole Mercedes range set for electrification by 2025, the EQE SUV leads the way for the marque in the mid-size electric SUV market. 

Mercedes-Benz EQE SUV, from £90,560, Mercedes-Benz.co.uk

This is the new Mercedes-Benz Vision One-Eleven concept, a bold projection of a future super-sports car that makes some overt references to the company’s more avant-garde moments. The visual ‘sample’ for the One-Eleven comes from the brand’s long and large back catalogue – in this case the widely admired, experimental, gull-winged and very orange 1970 C111-II. 

As chief design officer Gorden Wagener previously said, ‘the nice thing at Mercedes is that there is so much history, all you have to do is open the book and it’s full of inspiration,’ before quickly pointing out that copying the past is not his thing. ‘Of course we don’t do retro design, but there are so many things that you can combine with modern surface treatment and themes.’

When the cars are shown alongside each other – which Mercedes was happy and enthusiastic to do at the brand’s Californian design studio in Carlsbad – the visual links are deliberately clear, from overall theme to colour treatment. But while the 2023 Vision One-Eleven shares the 1970 vehicle’s aerodynamic emphasis and low-slung, gull-winged charm, its modern-day engineers have swapped out the former’s record-breaking Wankel engine for a full-electric powertrain using axial-flux motor technology developed by British company Yasa. 

Mercedes has fully-owned the electric motor specialist since July 2021 and says the new motor is extremely powerful yet also highly efficient, as well as being more compact and lighter than the radial-flux motors found in 99 pe of current electric vehicles. 

The One-Eleven’s design riffs off more recent vehicles created by Wagener’s team too. The pixelated front grille technology – which can act as a pair of headlights one moment and a digital safety message board to pedestrians the next – was previewed on the 2015 F 015 concept, as was the ombre effect on the windows, which appear to be opaque due to tiny paint dots printed directly onto the glass, but which have enough space between them to allow occupants to see out clearly while retaining exterior privacy. 

This orange and copper paint effect also blurs the conventional (belt) line between bodywork and window glass to cool aesthetic effect, making the concept’s shape feel more united as a design – and futuristic with it. 

The interior continues the bold but simple 1980s video game pixel-style theme in its dashboard display, while the quilted seating and bespoke luggage are adorned in bright silver material which subtly nods in turn to a much more recent early 2023 Mercedes concept collaboration, called Project Mondo G. 

Made with luxury ski and outdoor clothing brand Moncler, it features an iconic Mercedes G-Wagen 4x4 with sanded-down, battle-worn bodywork, plus four giant tyres and a roof clad in Moncler’s signature – and similarly silver – shiny puffer jacket ribs with a huge zipper at the back. 

Despite the pared-back and classic racing car vibes of the Vision One-Eleven’s cabin, Mercedes also separately showed off its latest augmented reality (AR) developments, via a virtual prototype of the same concept’s interior. This could be explored with Magic Leap 2 AR headsets to give driver information like satnav maps and app buttons projected into the space between driver and dashboard in a 4D effect.

Providing more than just a ‘wow’ factor, the technology can also render parts of the car ‘transparent’ by showing the driver the view beyond items that would otherwise obstruct driver vision, including the A-pillars either side of the windscreen and even the bonnet.    

As Mercedes seeks to explore its development into a luxury brand first and foremost – no longer just a car brand – alongside the concept’s unveil, a five-piece fashion capsule collection was also launched, including a weekender bag and orange-tinged sunglasses, each only available in editions of 111 in reference to the concept’s nameplate. 

All in all, the Vision One-Eleven is another show-stopping Mercedes concept, with a great mix of cultural, fashion and technological ideas embedded, in a way its rival German premium auto brands currently seem unable to match. 

Mercedes-Benz.co.uk

Mercedes-Benz is comfortable in its own skin. From the invention of the combustion engine at the tail end of the 19th century through to today’s focus on electrification, the German manufacturer has been at the heart of the changing look and feel of mobility. Gorden Wagener, who has led the company’s design team since 2008 and has been chief design officer since 2016, has stewarded its vast and diverse portfolio through fast-evolving consumer desires, legislative shifts and technological changes. At the same time, he has overseen the conceptual visions that drive the company forwards, as well as the design team’s expansion into non-automotive projects.

Partnerships are a crucial spoke in the circular world of luxury product design. ‘We only do very select partnerships, like the one with Virgil Abloh,’ says Wagener. ‘It’s about discovering what we have in common with another brand.’ The final fruits of this particular collaboration only surfaced after Abloh’s death in 2021, having begun with a radically customised G-Class the year before. The end result was a dramatic conceptual off-roader, dubbed Project Maybach. This pairing certainly pushed the envelope for Mercedes, and although the cars themselves were ostentatious, they were still recognisably practical and rooted in real-world requirements. For the company’s newest partnership, with Moncler, these considerations have been gleefully thrown to the wind. Instead of creating a concept car or an extreme custom piece, the collaboration has resulted in a striking piece of automotive sculpture.

Mercedes-Benz on its new collaboration with Moncler

Dubbed Project Gravity throughout its gestation, the piece, which, at the time of press, has yet to be officially named, marks a departure from conventional Mercedes design visions. For a start, there’s a real sense of humour at work; this is not a staid homage to the Italian fashion house’s aesthetic, but a playful piece of contemporary art that splices two iconic shapes into a single radical form.

Starting with the form and proportion of an original G-Wagen (not the revised and overhauled second generation that debuted in 2018), the design team added a salute to Moncler in the form of vast balloon tyres, an oversized pick-up bed and a stylised zipper. ‘I asked myself what Moncler was about,’ says Wagener. ‘And for me, it’s the classic puffer down jacket. I love full, rich surfaces, and these jackets absolutely embody this.’ The tyres and cabin have been shaped to resemble expanded Moncler jackets, formed from prominent quilted pocketing that stands in stark contrast to the rectilinear form of the G-Wagen itself.

Wagener says that the overall vision of the piece came out of their earliest visualisation sessions. ‘We called it Project Gravity not just because it was “G” for G-Wagen, but because the aesthetic was influenced by the Apollo mission,’ the designer recalls. ‘We created visuals showing the car as if it was the command module floating down on big parachutes having just returned from the moon.’ The G-Wagen itself is not a real car body, but a carefully scanned vintage bodyshell reproduced in thin, lightweight material, finished with a patina that Wagener describes as being ‘like an old Leica camera, with a worn surface showing the metal below’. He says, ‘We have combined this almost vintage approach with the futuristic silver of the quilting, which evokes the silvery foils that insulate satellites in orbit as well as high-tech emergency blankets.’

Even though there’s no interior, the roof and rear are bisected by a massive zipper. ‘The entire piece almost resembles a giant handbag,’ says Wagener. ‘The zipper looks like a tow hook that could pull a freight train.’ There are other obvious visual antecedents, ranging from American monster truck culture through to the big-wheeled G-Class G 500 4x42 concept from 2020, not to mention the ongoing revival in all things related to space exploration and rocketry. ‘We’re even thinking about creating an animation of the car bouncing around on the moon,’ says Wagener.

The designer acknowledges the piece owes a debt to fine art practice, not least the work of Jeff Koons’ balloon animals and oversized vitrines. ‘The piece is totally glossy and over-exaggerated,’ Wagener says, pointing out that Mercedes has been involved in several art projects under his tenure. These include the Aesthetics series of sculptures, which pare automotive designs down into simplified shapes, both as a homage to the past and a nod to future forms.

There’s not a lot of streamlining and simplification in the Moncler project, a decision that reflects the tough and enduring character of the original G-Wagen. First introduced in 1979, the Geländewagen began life as a military utility vehicle before finding favour among design aficionados of an increasingly luxurious bent. ‘It’s an icon, and icons are very important because they create a sense of luxury,’ says Wagener. ‘The G-Class is probably our strongest icon, but you still have to treat it carefully. We were very respectful when we redesigned it, while still bringing it into a new age.’

Once it leaves the studio, the piece will be shown at London Fashion Week and possibly travel further afield in its mission to disseminate the shared vision of Mercedes and Moncler. As for further developments in the partnership, Wagener won’t be drawn, saying only, ‘It’s not just going to be about a single art piece.’ As visions go, it’s out of this world.

The Mercedes-Benz x Moncler art piece will be unveiled on 20 February as part of Moncler Genius’ ‘The Art of Genius’ show at London Fashion Week.

A version of this story appeared in the March 2023 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

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There are various imagined futures for the electric car. In one, Tesla maintains its market lead – in 2021 around 70 per cent of all new electric cars bought in the US were Teslas, though its share of the global market is more like 14 per cent – while de-fossilising legacy and EV-native brands fight for what’s left.

There is another future where that only holds until Apple launches its EV and disrupts and comes to dominate the electric auto industry – and eventually the entire auto industry – in the way it did telecommunications, personal computing and pretty much everything else with the launch of the iPhone (the current rumours are that Apple will pick up the troubled but highly innovative and design-led Californian electric vehicle maker Canoo as it gets its EV launch ducks in a row).

In this future, Apple eats Tesla’s lunch.

This reading underestimates the lingering pull of the industry’s established powerhouse brands and the essential conservatism and caution of the average car buyer, leaser, or subscriber. The essential established order will be updated but not overthrown.

The key to how the EV market develops will be how the legacy brands swap out their combustion engine ranges and ease in a parallel electric fleet. And it seems they will do that not by electrifying existing models but by creating close but born-electric cousins. 

As cute, cuddly and innovative as the BMW i3 was, it proved too radical a proposition for many BMW loyalists. BMW's newest electric vehicle, the BMW i4 looks much more like, well, a BMW. 

The tipping point for electric cars will be when benchmark best-sellers are replaced by accessible electric counterparts. The future of the VW Golf ‘people’s car’ market, then, is not the electric Golf but the Volkswagen ID.3, an electric car designed to be electric, just as the original i3 was.

Another model key to this transfer of power is the Mercedes E-Class, the definitive executive saloon and traditionally Mercedes’ best-selling model.

And Mercedes has just launched the car they think will ease the E-Class customer into the electric age. Or to put it another way, this is a car designed to take on and outpace the Tesla Model S.

The EQE’s arrival follows the launch of the EQS luxury saloon and is based on the same ‘electric architecture’.

Designed by in-house designer Bastian Baudy, the EQE is recognisably an E-Class but has distinctive ‘one-bow’ lines and a notably shorter front end (no need to find space for that big combustion engine).

The EQE’s cabin sits on top of the powertrain rather than behind it, which essentially means you get a lot of big, airy space and it's noticeably taller, longer and with higher seating than the smoke-belching E-Class. 

In truth, it’s a design that takes some getting used to. Its proportions make practical sense, but you have to unlearn a lot of inherited thinking about what makes for an elegant line in car design. There is also little in the way of creases and sharp edges, so in flat light, it can seem low in drama. 

The EQE is not entirely free of quirk and character; see the auto pop-out sensually curved door handles and the heating coil-effect rear light. And head-on, it does pull a slightly sinister face.

But this is a car engineered to be effortlessly easy to live with and drive. It's a car for sitting in, not staring at, and its design pulls you inside.

A car like the EQE is all about the cabin experience, the plush leathers and actual wood but, as in all areas of life, it’s also about screen time.

Ever since Tesla essentially put a flat-screen telly between the two front seats, the EV market has seen a screen arms race.

The MBUX Hyperscreen debuted in the flagship EQS EV. It’s available as standard in the EQE 500 and an optional upgrade in the EQE 300, and stretches touch display screens right along the dashboard, offering the passenger their own set of digital controls and gizmos. The standard set-up, with digital display and central touch screen, is far more elegant, offering more than enough screen for your needs and leaving space for tactile wood with snappy graphic marquetry.

The EQE also features the brilliant AR sat nav which projects the essentials onto the windscreen in front of the driver.

Multiple layers of driver assistance, if required, take the car close to automation but, barring slightly squidgy brakes, the EQE is an easy-going pleasure to drive, the executive stress-busting cruiser it needs to be. 

In design terms, car makers are still grappling with balancing the formal experimentation that electric power trains allow and the need to create cars that feel familiar and that have a familiar design language.

It’s not an easy line to walk and many reviewers have been less than wowed by the EQE’s design, and particularly, its short front end. 

Those reactions seem less a reflection of the EQE’s failings than a failure to see how car design is morphing and answering new functional demands.

And that fundamentally, the modern driver is now less concerned with looks and performance and more with comfort and screen presence and just enough familiarity. 

INFORMATION

Mercedes-Benz EQE, from £76,450

Mercedes-Benz.com

The mighty Mercedes-Benz EQS has arrived to redraw the landscape of luxury mobility. EVs have always been expensive, thanks to the high costs of R&D into drivetrains and batteries, ensuring that the first generation of electric cars tended to skew towards the upper end of the market.

It’s only been in the past couple of years that smaller, more utilitarian EVs have emerged, although they’re still at a premium in comparison to their ICE equivalents.

Big milestones are looming, in particular 2025, by which time a host of companies have pledged to offer only pure electric or hybrid drivetrains. For manufacturers of high-end sports cars, these shifts are way more freighted. When you’ve spent decades building your image off the back of the visceral qualities of the internal combustion engine, suddenly switching to the near-silent whine of an electric motor will require radical reappraisal.

Luxury car makers, however, have an advantage. Mercedes-Benz (which can trace its origins back to 1883) and Rolls-Royce (founded in 1906) have spent well over a century refining the explosive process of internal combustion into a silky-smooth operation that is barely perceptible to drivers, passengers, or even passers-by.

Emissions, however, have remained stubbornly perceptible, despite increasingly intense attempts at mitigation. So on the one hand, electrification is a lifeline for new luxury, enabling a number of paradigm shifts to all happen at once: new forms, new technology, new levels of experience.

However, paradigm shifts are the antithesis of traditional luxury, a category built on heritage, provenance, and steady evolution.

This is a long-winded way of explaining why the Mercedes-Benz EQS (introduced by Mercedes’ design chief Gorden Wagener in a previous article) is what it is. For a start, it co-exists alongside the S-Class limousine, long considered the gold standard of high-end luxury, refinement, and engineering. The radical move would have been to usurp the S-Class altogether, but instead, the EQS is the automotive equivalent of a transitional fossil, a car that represents the shift from one group to another. It is almost – but not quite – sufficient to do the job of the S-Class.

By waiting until EV technology is sufficiently advanced to offer superb range (officially rated at around 480 miles, although in real-world situations it’s still well over 300 miles), the EQS banishes the very un-luxurious spectre of range anxiety.

Instead of worrying about finding the next charge point, driving the EQS gives you other things to think about, with a science fiction-style dashboard that spans the entire width of the car. This is Mercedes’ ‘Hyperscreen’, the evolution of the flatscreen instrument panel taken to its logical conclusion. A single piece of curved black glass actually houses three screens (there’s also a head-up display), including a separate display for the front-seat passenger.

The wealth of information available is discombobulating to the uninitiated. Of course, confusion is not something to be encouraged when driving a car, so the system works hand in hand with a layer of sensor technology that not only monitors what’s going on outside, but what you’re doing as you drive. This ranges from checking your attention levels to stopping you from taking sneaky looks at the passenger’s screen when you’re supposed to be driving (a sensor detects your eye movement and shuts the secondary screen down).

Driving is another area where the EQS straddles two worlds. For many years, Mercedes has had some of the best quasi-autonomous safety systems on the market, technology that filtered down through the range from the S-Class. Mercedes’ cars were among the first to effectively park themselves, or use radar-based cruise control to keep a safe distance from the car in front. They had the most seamless self-steering systems for staying in lane, whilst scanning the road ahead for possible dangers. These are now commonplace technologies, but there’s something about the big EQS’ high-tech ambiance that inspires a bit more confidence in the underlying system. It invites you to put more trust in the machine. 

On the highway, this is great. Regardless of traffic levels, speed, or weather, the EQS will glide along all by itself, checking periodically that you’re still paying attention. It is not autonomy, just a very sophisticated form of cruise control. The confidence it inspires is important, because it allows you to actually find the right spot to press on the vast screen, rather than constantly shift your attention between road and screen. You can also talk to the car, another area of tech where Mercedes has doggedly persisted and largely succeeded. Using ‘Hey Mercedes’ as an opening gambit, you can follow it up with an abstract request – ‘I’m cold,’ ‘I’m tired,’ etc – and the system will respond by boosting the temperature, suggesting you take a break or initiating one of the wellness programmes built in to its copious infotainment system.

Physically, the EQS resembles an S-Class that has undergone an experimental procedure, with a longer wheelbase and a stretched glasshouse that reaches almost to the tail of the car (and incorporates a hatchback, not a conventional boot).

In particular, the nose feels like it’s a shift between one era and another. The grille – now home to sensors, not cooling – incorporates the clever LED headlights and bears a massive three-pointed star. But it already feels a bit old-fashioned to have a grille at all, especially when seen alongside Mercedes-Benz’s most recent concept car, the EQXX, which references the sloping nose of a streamlined sports car instead.

Car makers are currently rebranding themselves as ‘mobility providers’, a catch-all definition that embraces the ambiguity of our relationship with the traditional automobile. At one end of the scale, you have the EQS, which is effectively the car as gated community, a gilded cage that secures you from the world outside. The flipside is machines like the Citroën AMI, a car that is almost equivalent to common, publicly-held infrastructure. The still-distant promise of pure autonomy promises more of the latter, but the EQS exists to remind us that the luxury private car will never really go away.

INFORMATION

Mercedes-Benz EQS, from £99,995

mercedes-benz.co.uk

Whilst Louis Vuitton's understandably outsize tribute to Virgil Abloh has dominated coverage of Design Miami 2021, another Abloh side-project has quietly gone on display at the city’s Rubell Museum. The launch of the creative polymath’s second collaboration with Mercedes-Benz, which only went ahead after consultation and a green light from his family, provides more evidence of Abloh’s unique ability to twist a brand's design language into fresh and future-facing shapes.

In 2020 Abloh created a one-off re-working of the Mercedes G-Class, Project Geländewagen, but the new project, for Mercedes-Benz’s luxury Maybach division, is an entirely new design. Again a collaboration with Mercedes-Benz chief design officer Gorden Wagener, and celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Maybach brand, the new show car is essentially a two-seat, off-road electric coupé, a 6m-long grand tourer with SUV ambition.

Project Maybach by Virgil Abloh and Mercedes-Benz

As with many of Abloh's projects, this is as much an effort to track and overtake the slippery signifiers of luxury as it is a design exercise. Like the one-off G-Class, Project Maybach, as it is tagged, plays with the trappings of luxury and luxury travel in the tricky space where they meet the quieter language of function and utility (in that, it shares a kind of common purpose with the North Face x Gucci collaboration from early 2021, and the new Jil Sander Arc'teryx range).

The exterior, in a sandy monotone and wrapped in a roll bar, talks of high-stakes adventuring, though fundamentally the car remains a sleek luxury coupé, including a slick, sci-fi chrome grille. 

The Maybach brand, though, is really about the cabin experience, the luxurious glide to your destination, as much as it is about the externals or the driving experience (they presume a hired hand will do the driving for now, and an AI will do it in the future).  

Abloh and Wagener have imagined the interior as a kind of modular hotel room, with seats that fold down to become a first-class flat bed. Polished aluminium is contrasted with super-soft sandy leather (tanned naturally, with coffee shells) and a jacquard houndstooth-finish headrest doubles up as a blanket, while compartments open to reveal reading lights. The seats can also be packed up, suitcase-style, and removed, should you wish to install them in your high-end tent. 

Mostly, Abloh and Wagener were having fun here. See the Maybach branded axe, for use in emergencies only. At the same time, they have, in places, reinvigorated and tightened up the sloppy tropes of luxury car design and pointed a perhaps tired typology in new directions. Mercedes-Benz may say that Project Maybach is a modest contribution to Abloh’s design legacy, but there is little to be modest about. 

INFORMATION

mercedes-benz.com

Mercedes-Benz is making a big commitment to electrification. It currently has three pure EVs on the market, the compact EQA, the EQC SUV and the new Mercedes-Benz EQS sedan, shown here in the cavernous surroundings of Zurich’s new Halle 550 exhibition space, designed by Spillmann Echsle Architects. There’s also the forthcoming EQB seven-seater SUV and an electric version of Mercedes’ V-class van, the EQV.  While EQs A, B and C follow established car design principles, the EQS is way bolder, making the most of all-new electric underpinnings.

The next Mercedes-Benz EVs will deploy this platform to increasingly spectacular effect. Gorden Wagener has headed up Mercedes’ design team since 2008, becoming the company’s chief design officer in 2016, and the EQS is the culmination of a long-term design project, as well as the start of something new.

Mercedes-Benz EQS electric sedan

‘The design team helped define the new architecture, starting with our 2015 design vision, the F 015 Luxury in Motion concept car,’ says Wagener. ‘This provided an answer to pretty much everything – autonomy, digital connectivity, electric drive. We’ve tried to make that vision become reality with the EQS and the cars that will follow.’ 

In some respects, the ultra-aerodynamic EQS goes head-to-head with the long-established flagship Mercedes S-Class range, the Sonderklasse (‘special class’) that has led the brand’s line-up since 1972. As the designer notes, ‘S-Class is the core of our brand, our most important product’. Over the decades, the S-Class has ushered in a host of automotive technologies that are now industry standard.

The baton is about to be passed. ‘We are in a transition phase right now,’ says Wagener. ‘We still have combustion cars and we’ve just launched a new S-Class with both combustion and hybrid models. The EQS stands next to the existing model – it’s not yet time to completely replace it.’

In terms of design, the EQS offers impressive new levels of interior space. ‘The biggest challenges with electric cars are the height of the battery, which makes the body taller,’ Wagener explains. ‘The EQS has a long wheelbase and a decent wheel size, so there’s a good wheel-to-body relationship, which is so crucial on luxury cars.’ It incorporates that fine fluid line you saw on the F 015, with stretched windows and a roof line that creates an entirely new silhouette.

Inside, there is another paradigm shift, the MBUX Hyperscreen. Stretching door to door, this colossal display screen was a huge technical challenge. ‘The Hyperscreen came out of an early interior sketch. At that point, it was impossible to realise,’ says Wagener. ‘What I love so much about this company is that we made it a reality using our engineering skills. The Hyperscreen will change the industry – it’s so disruptive.’ 

Wagener believes that technology impacts on aesthetics, not just urban emissions and driving habits. ‘Technology fundamentally changes the look of the product,’ he says. ‘For me, it’s almost like the shift from steam trains to bullet trains.’  At the 2021 IAA Mobility Show in Munich, Mercedes unveiled the EQE sedan, in addition to new electric concepts from Mercedes-Maybach, Mercedes-AMG and Smart.

In 2022, it will reveal the Vision EQXX concept, which promises a range of around 1,000km. The company seems determined to ensure that aesthetics and innovation go hand in hand.

INFORMATION

Mercedes-Benz EQS, from £99,995

Mercedes-Benz.co.uk

The Mercedes-Benz EQS was shot in the grounds of the Halle 550 exhibition centre in Zurich

Photography courtesy of Mercedes-Benz AG

We’re a little late to explore Mercedes-Benz’s first attempt at a pure electric, mass production vehicle. The new Mercedes-Benz EQC is a big, burly SUV, roughly equivalent in size and price to the current GLE model. This in turn is the modern-day evolution of Mercedes’ debut SUV, the ML, which launched all the way back in 1997. For a time, the EQC stood alone as the only pure electric car in the company’s line-up (alongside several plug-in hybrid models), the first of ten planned EVs in the EQ series that are set to be launched in the next couple of years. The big hitter, the EQS, is also with us, an impressive electric reimagination of Mercedes’ flagship S-Class saloon. There’s also the smaller EQA, EQB, EQE and EQV, implying that the company is hellbent on following its long-standing system of similarly styled but slightly differently sized cars.

Like all car makers, it’s starting its EV journey at the top of the market; as battery tech and margins improve, you can expect electric Mercedes to get smaller and smaller. 

Mercedes-Benz EQC

The EQS is an American-scale SUV – that is to say, it is absolutely massive. The exterior design has a slippery, slightly soap-bar like character that appears to have had some of its detailing worn away. Gone are the instant visual signifiers that scream ‘Mercedes’, even the three-pointed star looks slightly lost in the glass-encircled grille.

The company was an early master of the art of consistent, corporate design. Mercedes imbued its entire fleet of vehicles with a set of scalable visual values that ensured even the smallest cars in its range shared DNA with their more refined stablemates. In the past two decades, the arrival of SUVs and crossovers has muddied the clear waters of car design and its simple hierarchies. These days, small cars still ape their elder siblings, but the imitation is paler and the flattery less sincere. 

The EQC’s unassuming exterior is countered by a very stylish cabin design, dominated by a dashboard-wide screen that feels sufficiently futuristic. Refinement is top notch, although there’s no disguising the weight of the batteries over bumps and rough roads. At a shade under 260 miles, the range is best described as adequate, although fast-charge compatibility with the expanding IONITY network will ease the inevitable range anxiety (many owners will doubtless have access to their own charge box).

In the meantime, you get the satisfying feeling of boosting driving efficiency through the paddle-mounted regeneration function – click to increase the amount of kinetic energy the brakes pump back into the batteries. There’s also an array of sensor-driven systems that will automatically eke out as much battery life as possible, sifting through data from satnav, radar systems and speed limit info and making the necessary invisible adjustments.

For the time being, switching to electric is still a consumer choice, but it won’t be for very much longer. More affordable EVs are appearing all the time, although in the world of Mercedes, even its smallest electric cars tend to have premium prices. Mercedes is a strong player in mass-market luxury, and its broad sweep of EVs should retain the prestige (and price) the marque has always commanded.

The Mercedes-Benz EQC might be full of advanced technology, but it still commands attention like a traditional brawny SUV, not a mobility pioneer.

INFORMATION

Mercedes EQC400 4Matic, from £65,720

mercedes-benz.co.uk

Mercedes-Benz announced today that it is collaborating with the multi-hyphenate designer, Virgil Abloh, to create a unique artwork.

Titled Project Geländewagen, the artwork will modify and reinterpret the German carmaker’s G-Class SUV, a robust off-road vehicle with a distinctive boxy silhouette, first launched in 1979. It draws on the hallmarks of the Mercedes-Benz brand: premium materials, superb craftsmanship and highly developed design; and intends to deliver a new vision of luxury that is defined by the sharing of ideas and disciplines.

In the preview announcement, Abloh calls the project ‘a perfect chassis to interject modern artists’ ideas of what the future can be stylistically, within conceptual car design’.

Echoing Abloh’s enthusiasm for creative experimentation, Mercedes-Benz chief design officer Gorden Wagener says that they are ‘set to create something unseen’ in automotive design, fashion and art. The project articulates Mercedes-Benz’s positioning as ‘more than a luxury carmaker, it is a design brand and luxury label.’

Project Geländewagen will be revealed digitally to a global audience on 8 September 2020, at 4pm CET on mercedes-benz.com.

Recognising a duty to support the arts and the international creative community in a time of uncertainty, Mercedes-Benz and Abloh have agreed to auction off a home-scale replica of their unique artwork following the launch event, with all proceeds donated to a charity that supports the arts. The winner of the auction will also receive a personal introduction to Abloh and Wagener, to learn more about the inspirations and intentions for the artwork.

The full story on Project Geländewagen, with exclusive preview imagery, will run in the September 2020 issue of Wallpaper*, on newsstands from 20 August. Wallpaper* subscribers will receive the issue with a limited-edition cover by Abloh. 

INFORMATION

Project Geländewagen will be unveiled with a digital event on 8 September, at 4pm CET, at mercedes-benz.com. Limited-edition covers of the Wallpaper* print edition are exclusive to subscribers, see wallpaper.com/sub20

A common complaint about the plethora of high-end auto collectables that crowd the upper echelons of the car market is that very few are used and enjoyed. Despite manufacturers spending hundreds of millions to design, develop and build these strictly limited production runs, the most likely hypercar buyers are after profit, not performance, and will simply add their new acquisition to a roster of similarly outlandish machines and wait for inflation to do its work. 

As a result, the supercar builders are coming to the realisation that a luxury car is as much an objet d’art as a mode of transport, just as it’s long been accepted that many classics are simply too valuable to risk on the roads (let alone the track). New venture Superfuturedesign is proposing a simple solution this look-but-don't-touch approach. Working with Italian consultancy ASZarchitetti Group, the studio has created the Supercar Capsule, an interior design service aimed specifically at blending high-end autos into the home. With the car-mad Middle Eastern market in mind, each Capsule is custom-made for a specific model and space, with tailored materials and lighting designed to turn a car into a talking point.

As far as manufacturers go, Aston Martin is ahead of the game, having launched its own Automotive Galleries and Lairs division at last summer's Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Dovetailing bespoke design with architectural collaborations, the idea is to swathe your Aston Martin in an environment that it is as dramatic as the car itself. There’s a certain amount of cinematic synergy going on here – the company rarely lets an opportunity to highlight its long-standing association with the Bond films –and the end results are part Ken Adam, part Zaha Hadid, placing the car on a pedestal within a custom-designed space, with swooping staircases, walls of glass and other tropes of set design.

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German architect Fabian Evers explored similar territory with his Into the Wild concept house, designed for a private client. Evers, who has worked with Foster and Partners and UN Studio (where he worked on the design of the Mercedes-Benz Museum), ticks every box. An Alpine retreat with a spectacular view, it features a living space with a glass-walled car lift, allowing the owner's Mercedes SLS-AMG GT to be enjoyed when it's not being driven up and down the mountain roads. 

The chasm between personal mobility and traditional automotive expression yawns ever wider. Hypercars and supercars are high profile, profitable and hugely desirable. As the window of opportunity to use them as they were intended becomes ever smaller, these bespoke display spaces will be increasingly in demand.

INFORMATION
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There may have been grumbles from within the Frankfurt motor show about fewer exhibitors than in previous years and protests outside about the automotive sector’s contribution to climate change, but say what you will about the biennial German event, it still has the power to attract major attention and warrants scrutiny.

All the big German brands rolled out significant models, most notably VW’s ID.3 – its first made-to-measure full-electric car and the first of at least six from the same modular platform – that suggests it really does want to put its Dieselgate scandal-blighted past behind it. To signal the symbolic shift VW even unveiled a new, more humble 2D version of its formerly shiny 3D one. Electric power was king everywhere at the show. Even Land Rover’s long-awaited new Defender 4x4 – previously a very chuggy and usually no-nonsense diesel vehicle – now boasts a mild hybrid version plus a plug-in hybrid to follow, alongside its traditional petrol and diesel offerings.

Beyond the established Western marques, Chinese newcomer brands were more numerous than at previous European shows – with both Wey and Byton the most convincing. In particular, the 48-inch wide infotainment screen on Byton’s production-ready M-Byte impressed with its ambition and software, and is unmatched by any other maker in the world right now (the interior screen of Honda’s endearing ‘e’ city car also unveiled in Frankfurt, is the nearest). Both should deliver their cars to customers by mid-2020.

The appetite for such high-tech EVs is out there, demand outstrips supply in many cases, so now the carmakers need to deliver on their promise in sufficient numbers, and be matched by public charging infrastructure. Out of five main halls populated by vehicle manufacturers, here are Wallpaper’s 2019 Frankfurt top six unveils…

Volkswagen ID.3

The positive news from VW’s stand was the reveal of the production-ready ID.3 with most of the charm of its conceptual forebear intact. The product design-inspired and Golf-sized five-seat hatch is the start of an all-electric family which will be produced in the millions and spawn a large saloon, several SUVs, a 21st camper van and possibly a beach buggy and a racing car too. Jump inside the ID.3 and apart from the high-tech screens the design is noticeably simple and pared back. ‘It’s about the democratisation of electric mobility to get the price point down,’ head of design Klaus Bischoff explains, ‘and also at the end of its lifespan it’s then easier to dismantle and recycle.’ UK prices should start from circa £27,000 and begin in mid-2020, with home-charging wallboxes from £300. VW says the ID.3 is as important to its history as the Beetle and the Golf and it might just be proved right – which after years of being in the wrong over emissions cheating – is a good thing.

Land Rover Defender

We’ve had to wait a long time for this most famous vehicle silhouette to be refreshed. Two concepts for a new Defender were shown in 2011 and the basic shape dates back to the very start of the brand in 1948. But looking at all those influences, the production-ready new Defender stays pretty true to what endeared it to so many. Some critics feel the new design doesn’t look rugged enough, but its boxy and functional proportions remain, practical steel wheels are an option and the new model will surely still have the necessary skills to ‘go-anywhere’, albeit costing a little more money than before. The commercial van-back version will starts from £35,000 rising to £40,000 for the six-seat 90 edition and £45,240 for the 110 version with five-, six- or 5+2-seat configuration possibilities.

Mercedes-Benz Vision EQS

The Vision EQS concept limousine was the headline news on the Mercedes stand and is significant as the first design on a new electric platform which will lead to many other luxury EV production models. It’s also crucial to the ambition of Mercedes’ parent company Daimler and also announced in Frankfurt, to become CO2-neutral by 2039. The Vision EQS continues Mercedes’ quiet sophistication in design approach too. ‘Everybody is still putting slashes and creases on the sides of their cars while we do simple and clean designs,’ Gorden Wagener, chief design officer told us. ‘We vary that for all our luxury cars but the EQ models should be the most progressive.’

The large battery pack required for a longer-distance EV is accommodated and visually hidden between a considerably lengthened wheelbase and by using larger wheels, while in side view the car is unified by a silhouette that has become almost a single arc, (or what Mercedes calls a ‘one-bow’ design, as in a rainbow shape). Either way, Wagener promises 80 per cent of the Vision EQS’s design will make it through to the production EQS due circa 2022 and will sell alongside the brand’s next S-Class limousine, not replace it.

Porsche Taycan

Porsche is one step ahead of Mercedes on its luxury electric saloon journey, unveiling its four-seater Taycan production EV ready to buy now and true to the Mission E concept of 2015 that prefaced it. The interior features a modern design with frameless driver display – the bulky cowl on previous models has been dispensed with as Porsche found a way to manage without by adding a sunglasses-like polarisation effect on top of the screen glass to avoid unwanted reflections. And by moving some of the battery packs to the outer edges, rear passengers’ feet effectively sit within a hollowed-out section, thus allowing them to sit lower and the roofline to remain swoopy. The Taycan is not for the masses – what Porsche is? – but a technical tour de force nonetheless and a big psychological leap for the previously combustion-engined stalwarts.

Hyundai 45 Concept

Another brand looking to the past to find inspiration for the future at Frankfurt was Korean brand Hyundai. Its 45 concept paid homage to the number of years since its significant Pony Coupe concept of 1974 designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, the independent design legend also behind the first VW Golf, Fiat Panda and DeLorean DMC-12. Behind the nostalgia of its retro lighting effects and angular proportions, the 2019 concept is superbly modern in execution and has a wonderful lounge-like interior enhanced by a louvred sunroof which throws light into the space like natural sunlight can sometimes do through a blind in a domestic living room. No pre-production teaser this, but the 45 indicates Hyundai’s clean design approach underpinned by electric powertrains, is heading in a very tasteful direction.

BMW Vision M Next

Technically, BMW’s Vision M Next supercar was revealed to the world some weeks before Frankfurt but its public debut at the show was the best thing on the BMW stand by far, in the opinion of all the critics and experts we bumped into during motor show week. Hunkered down, angular and well-proportioned, with a convincing new interpretation of the brand’s famous kidney grille, plus a dynamically diagonal two-tone paint job.

INFORMATION

iaa.de

Pictured top, Pininfarina Battista (around $2m). Pitched as Italy’s ‘most powerful ever sports car’, the Battista packs 1,900hp of battery power within its sleek frame. Go easy, and you’ll get a 280-mile range. pininfarina.com. Pictured bottom, Rivian R1T Truck (available in 2020). Boasting a 400-mile range, the Rivian Truck (also joined by a new SUV) is an all-American utility vehicle hoping to bring rugged, go-anywhere chic to the EV market. rivian.com. 

As of this month, you’ll be able to put down a deposit on a brand new Volkswagen ID, a Golf-sized all-electric vehicle that comes pre-loaded with a weight of expectations. The car itself won’t be shown to the public until this September’s Frankfurt Motor Show, and this sight-unseen marketing strategy is hitherto unknown for a volume car manufacturer. Two things have changed the automotive landscape in the past decade. The first is the unpredictable combination of aspiration, ego, innovation and bottomless funds that has driven the American manufacturer Tesla to the forefront of the industry. The second is the fallout from the Volkswagen emissions scandal, a corporate cluster-bomb that had the unintended consequence of vastly accelerating change by killing off the very fuel it was trying to promote.

Electric vehicles (EVs) are now all the rage. At this year’s Geneva Motor Show, EVs were thick on the ground, from high-end sports cars to compact city runarounds, over-styled crossovers, outlandish luxury SUVs and conventional family cars. Almost overnight, the EV market has blossomed to fill every niche. For the industry, the shift to EVs is a no-brainer; brands will flourish under a system that promotes zero-emission driving. Over a century’s worth of automotive heritage will simply shift gear to accommodate a new generation of car buyers. For governments, cities and the public, the answer isn’t so clear. Tax revenues from fuel sales look set to plummet, while congestion and auto-centric urban design will persist.

Pictured top, Citroën Ami One (concept only). Citroën’s Ami One is a nod to the French firm’s innovative small city cars of the mid 20th-century. The two-seater is aimed squarely at the urban market. citroen.com. Pictured bottom, Polestar 2 (from €59,900). An all-electric fastback design, the Polestar 2 promises a new approach to car ownership, with seamless digital integration and smart minimal design. polestar.com.

For aspirant carmakers, this shift seemed an opportunity. Building an auto brand from scratch is a colossal undertaking, but EVs have lowered the barrier to entry, with shared platforms and far lower start-up costs. Where Tesla led, others followed. The clean-slate approach of new names such as Lynk & Co, Byton, Nio, Faraday Future and the revived Fisker brand, or even the secretive Dyson project, suddenly all seemed to have a place at the table. That window of opportunity may be narrowing, though.

Volkswagen has dug deep into its corporate pockets and set about reinventing itself as an electric powerhouse. By 2028, it promises 70 new electric models across its various brands; it claims it will be a CO2-neutral company by 2050. Other manufacturers are also taking stock. In 2017 Volvo was first to announce that all its new cars launched from 2019 would be hybrids (either ‘mild’ or ‘plug-in’) or entirely electric, with 50 per cent of its fleet being pure electric by 2025. Honda also recently committed to the total electrification of its European sales output by 2025. Porsche (a Volkswagen subsidiary) is making a massive push, bringing the sleek Taycan saloon to market later this year, with other EVs to follow. Other makers are adopting the strategy of electrifying small cars and keeping hybrid tech for larger vehicles.

For many car owners, the EV is still an unknown. Big name support might bring confidence, but other companies are resorting to another tactic: pure temptation. Electric vehicles represent a new design opportunity in an image-obsessed industry. BMW’s i division debuted in 2013 with two defiantly distinctive models, the i3 and the i8. Jaguar’s i-Pace is the style-obsessed manufacturer’s most glamorous and desirable car, while debut EVs from Audi, Mercedes, Mini, Hyundai and Kia all major heavily on design. Honda is bringing out a chic little city car in 2020, previewed by the delightful e Prototype, while other quirky urban electrics include Quadro’s eQooder (bolstered by a collaboration with Tod’s), Citroën’s Ami One, Seat’s Minimó and Fiat’s Concept Centoventi (a rather late entry for a company with gold-star heritage in the urban sector). Brands such as Polestar and Lynk & Co (both owned by Chinese manufacturer Geely, which also owns Volvo) combine contemporary design with new ownership models, reasoning that future drivers might not need to have 24-hour access or responsibility for their own vehicle.

Other start-ups are going further still to bring EVs into every conceivable niche. Rivian is hoping to create an ‘electric adventure vehicle’ sector. The American company’s R1S SUV and R1T pick-up truck are due on the road towards the end of next year and boast a 400-mile range (‘San Francisco to Yosemite and back’). Rivian’s vice president of vehicle design, Jeff Hammoud, describes an emphasis on design from the outset. ‘The first thing we paid attention to is the proportion,’ he says, explaining that the company’s EV platform (which it may license out) allows for a plethora of body styles and functions. Branding is also consciously different. ‘Trucks have grilles to communicate strength and power – they tend to be very big. We don’t need a grille, but we have kept everything intelligent and blunt. That identity also has to scale into the future.’

Hammoud describes Rivian’s style as a ‘Patagonia jacket, not an Armani suit’, emphasising the brand’s inherent functionalism. The rebirth of Lagonda, on the other hand, is pitched at the consumer of luxury attire. Part of Aston Martin since 1947, Lagonda resurfaces in 2021 with an SUV, previewed at Geneva by the All-Terrain Concept. Purely electric from the outset, the target is the Rolls-Royce market and the ethos is contemporary luxury, underpinned by cutting-edge craft, materials and tech. ‘We aim to reimagine luxury travel in a way that could only be done in the 21st century,’ says Gerhard Fourie, Aston Martin Lagonda’s director of marketing and brand strategy. ‘We don’t see luxury and technology at opposing sides of the spectrum; together they can create wonderful experiences.’ Luxury buyers seem keen to embrace the new. ‘We obviously get the strongest reaction from customers who are open to change,’ Fourie admits. ‘They have strong views on design and quite a healthy relationship with the technology in their lives – I’d say they are “technology enabled” rather than “technology obsessed”.’

Pictured top, Lagonda All-Terrain Concept car (available 2021). Lagonda’s All-Terrain Concept will hit the market in 2021 as the first luxury electric SUV. The British brand, revived in 2018 by Aston Martin, is majoring on design and quality. lagonda.com. Pictured bottom, Honda e Prototype (available 2019). Inspired by the original Honda Civic, this prototype previews Honda’s ultra-compact city car, a neat four-door with retro styling, a chic interior and, of course, zero emissions. honda.com

Also at the high end you have the Pininfarina Battista, an electric hypercar that’s out to steal the super-rich away from their Ferraris. ‘If we want to do justice to the brand we have to start where people perceive us,’ says Automobili Pininfarina’s CEO Michael Perschke, who describes the 89-year-old design house as the ‘Château Lafite of car design’. The Battista – named after the brand’s founder, Battista ‘Pinin’ Farina – is intended to be the ‘most powerful Italian sports car ever made’. With a motor in each wheel, the car will have a scarcely credible 1,900hp (over 25 per cent more than its conventionally powered rival, the Bugatti Chiron). ‘The design is a balance between radical technology and timeless Pininfarina design,’ says Perschke. ‘We want people to fall in love with an electric car for the first time.’

For well over a century, the motor car has been a totem of identity as much as a mode of transport, embedded for better or worse within society and culture. The success of all these cars depends on the premise that the automobile is here to stay, yet calls to curb or cut out car use are given increasingly serious consideration. Early EV adopters might have already reaped all the available rewards, sucking up the rebates, subsidies, free parking spots and absence of tolls. The other as yet unanswered question is that of charging. Although manufacturers are helping new networks seed across the road system, what’s really needed is a top-down overhaul of park and charge infrastructure, from city streets to supermarkets. That’s a whole different story. What’s certain is that for a time at least we’ll have more cars, not fewer, as EVs blur the lines between concept and reality and find new ways of seducing the drivers of the future. 

As originally featured in the June 2019 issue of Wallpaper* (W*243)

Over four decades, Mercedes’ G-Class – or G-Wagen as its more affectionately known – has built up quite a CV. The once utilitarian, ‘go-anywhere’ off-roader has circumnavigated the planet, won the gruelling Paris-Dakar Rally at the hands of Jackie Ickx and carried the Vatican City’s Holy father.

‘Whether it’s covered in mud or freshly painted, the G-Class is always a statement,' says Dr. Gunnar Güthenke, Head of the Mercedes G-Class programme at the newly minted G-Class Experience Centre in the grounds of the G’s production facility in Graz, Austria.

The story of one of the world’s best-loved off-roaders starts in the South of France in 1979 – the moment the G was first revealed to the media. On first impressions, the press was captivated by its old-school ladder-type frame, its chiselled jawline and the sparse but practical interior. With the option of four different engines, two wheelbase lengths and five body styles to choose from, the G-Wagon had something for every occasion. From fire truck to city runabout and everything in between, the ‘G’ was Stuttgart’s answer to the inimitable and much-admired Land Rover. Just a year after its launch, Pope John Paul II’s visit to Germany prompted the factory in Graz to produce a personal, glass-domed G-Wagen, one of the best-known ‘Popemobiles’. Marketing genius or a benevolent gift? Either way, the G-Wagen gained worldwide fame in an instant.    

While most car makers refresh their product offering within the space of five years, Mercedes thought differently. After a decade of continuous, unchanged production, Merc ushered in a new era in 1989, morphing the G-Wagen into a more comfortable and refined off-roader. Despite its virtually unchanged exterior, the new G was more reflective of the affluent, town and country buyers it had come to attract. What started life as a boxy, utilitarian workhorse was fast becoming a cult classic.

With the G still charming its way into the hearts of everyone from city slickers to civil servants, the Stuttgart-based carmaker was working on something very different. In the town of Affalterbach, just a few miles north-west of Mercedes’ headquarters stood Aufrecht, Melcher and Großaspach – otherwise known as AMG. Initially developed as a stand-alone Mercedes tuning company, the outfit’s operations quickly became intertwined with the German auto giant, forming the basis of an allegiance that would go on to create some of the finest performance cars of the century. Of all Mercedes’ models, the G would be the least likely candidate for performance treatment but, in 1999, both AMG and Merc pulled the covers off the 349bhp, 5.5-litre naturally aspirated V8 powered G 55 AMG. A new niche of ballistic, performance off-roaders had been born.  

After blending two oddly complementary strands of German engineering, the floodgates were open. Out poured imitators and challengers as Porsche, Land Rover and BMW brought to market Frankenstein creations that combined off-road ability with supercar performance. Mercedes and AMG had – perhaps unwittingly – started the automotive equivalent of an all-road arms race. To cut through the noise, Merc would need to think far beyond the slab-sided box it had first dreamt up in the late 1970s.

Throughout the 2000s, the marque continued to push the boundaries of what was mechanically possible. 2002 saw the G-Wagen up the ante with the addition of a monstrous 6.3-litre V12 with close to 500bhp. Ten years later, the engineering experts at AMG squeezed an extra 183bhp out of the engine before launching the monstrous, six-wheel-drive G 63 AMG 6x6 in 2013. Despite its brutal appearance and all-conquering ability, there was more to come.

2017 brought about the previous generation G-Wagen’s swansong – the open-top Mercedes-Maybach G 650 Landaulet. Limited to 99 vehicles, the G 650 was the road-going equivalent of a superyacht, complete with drop-top canvas roof, limousine levels of luxury and nautical proportions. With a V12 bi-turbo engine from AMG, a length of 5.3meters and a height of 2.2meters, the G 650 is beyond comparison – a rare glimpse of true automotive silliness from the Stuttgart powerhouse.

Now, in 2019, the G-Wagen enters its 40th year in production. Since the first models rolled off the very same production line in Graz, each bears the ‘Schöckle-proved’ hallmark, nestled in the doorframe – a nod to the infamous, 1445-meter mountain in Graz, where every new development made on the G undergoes more than 2,000km of testing.

For four decades, the G has been turning heads, churning through mud and even frequenting battlefields the world over. Despite that, it’s believed around 80 per cent of them are still roaming the streets to this day. While its eccentric iterations are novel distractions, at its core is a design that’s barely changed in just short of half a century. A design classic formed in response to function but developed by demand and desire. Like it or loathe it, if the past four decades are anything to go by, the Mercedes G-class is here to stay. 

INFORMATION

Mercedes G-Class, from £94,580. mercedes-benz.co.uk

Germany is making design news. In our April 2019 issue (W*241), we shined a light on its bold new Bauhaus Museum, and its pioneering fashion collectives redefining everyday dressing. Here, from the supplement, we explore the country's power surge of electrifying autos.

BMW 530e iPerformance (pictured top)

BMW’s electric strategy seems to be taking two routes. On the one hand, you have the acclaimed i3 and i8 – still two of the most futuristic cars on the road some eight years after the designs were first seen. And on the other, you have the slow, inexorable hybridisation of every other model in the fleet. The new 530e iPerformance is a case in point. As a plug-in hybrid, it leaves it down to the driver whether to make the most of EV power, offering up a more than serviceable petrol alternative if the batteries are flat. Make the most of both options, however, and you have a hyper-efficient business saloon, full of cutting-edge but discreet technology. It drives with the spirited verve that defines every BMW saloon, while encouraging you to make the most energy-efficient progress you possibly can. From £49,950, bmw.com

Mercedes-Benz EQC

Mercedes-Benz has launched a dedicated electric sub-brand, EQ, to focus its EV strategy (there are already a host of hybrid variants of the marque’s regular models). The EQC is the first production model to appear, a relatively conservative, big SUV that doesn’t break any moulds but instead offers a familiar form to those wavering between old-school engines and the zero-emission future. In fact rather sleeker than its combustion-engined siblings, the EQC benefits from a more minimalist touch. Access to the Ionity fast-charge network and a projected range of 280 miles make it competitive, while the slick evolution of the Mercedes-Benz interior will also win fans. Expect more EQ models in the coming months, both big and small, topped by a rumoured all-electric alternative to the flagship S-Class saloon. Approximately £60,000-£70,000, mercedes-benz.com/EQ

Porsche Mission E Cross Turismo

A concept that’s not far from reality, Porsche’s Mission E Cross Turismo is related to the upcoming Taycan – the marque’s first all-electric production car – but has a slightly higher ride and an extended luggage compartment. Porsche is already a master of hybrid tech, as seen in the 918 supercar, the Panamera, the Cayenne and the forthcoming 911; its pure EVs will take things further. To retain its status as the world’s biggest sports car-maker, Porsche needs to make its Porsche Mission E Cross Turismo EVs ultra-desirable. As a result, its designers have spent half a decade honing the Taycan, starting with the original Mission E concept in 2015. The model will have a fast-charge system that will give 80 per cent range in just 15 minutes, using the Ionity network. Variants are sure to follow, all with Porsche levels of performance as standard. The concept seen here could be a part of a major shift in performance motoring. Concept only, porsche.com

Volkswagen e-Golf

Despite Volkswagen’s garage-full of new electric cars due to roll out at the start of the next decade, there are still plenty of takers for the simplest option: an electric Golf. The e-Golf has been a long-term project, with the first prototypes arriving in 2011. Since then, it has continued to evolve and improve its range, to the point that it is a truly credible alternative to the combustion-engine classic. At one point, the e-Golf was the best-selling car in EV-mad Norway, for example. However, despite its appeal, this may be your last chance, at least for a while, to grab one. While a Golf Mk8 will be released this year, the e-Golf is likely to give way to the company’s new ID range of pure electric cars. From £32,550, vw.com

As originally featured in the April 2019 issue of Wallaper* (W*241)

The world’s biggest vehicle market is fast becoming the most influential too. At China’s most important motor show for 2019 – Auto Shanghai (18-25 April)  – electric car unveilings were the rule, not the exception. The only significant global premiere that Wallpaper* noted without an electric powertrain was Mercedes GLB small SUV – and even that model will spawn an electric variant soon.

The reason? While the western world slowly moves towards electric vehicles – accelerated by the ripples from VW’s ‘Dieselgate’ emissions scandal – the Chinese Government is promoting electric vehicles as never before. This is in large part to alleviate the vast country’s urban traffic and pollution problems but also because, as one non-Chinese designer working for a local Chinese maker put it: ‘the Chinese Government wants its auto industry to take over the world via electrification’.

Despite a slight sales decline in 2018, down 4 per cent to 23.8m units, the Chinese market is still massive and firmly number one – the US shifted 17.3m and Europe 15.6m by comparison. Chinese designers at local car brands – albeit often under the guidance of older Western design chiefs – are now showing more maturity in exterior execution and creating interiors bristling with innovation. Meanwhile, many historic western brands are being revitalised under new Chinese backing (Volvo and more recently Lotus are two examples, both now majority-owned by Geely Holdings).

All in all, China has become a key market, investor and player in the auto world. Out of the myriad global unveils across a dozen-plus halls over multiple floors, here are Wallpaper’s 2019 Auto Shanghai favourites…

Geometry A

Chinese brands unknown or at least new to most western eyes were in abundance at the 2019 Shanghai show. In contrast to the various mystery start-up concepts with only projected on-sale production dates, the model A from all-new, all-electric Geometry brand of parent company Geely Auto, was one of the most convincing unveils. Why? Because a) the compact saloon is already on sale in China, for RMB150,000 (about £17,000), due for distribution worldwide and offering two credible electric-range options – 410km and 500km and b) the well-designed vehicle has a remarkably sophisticated interior with details like embedded under-the-surface buttons that not even high-end Western makers have yet managed to get into production.

Lotus Type 130

Historically much-loved but currently under-performing sports car brand Lotus chose Shanghai to announce its effective re-birth with backing from Chinese owner Geely Auto. The first product in the new range will be a £1.5m-plus full-electric two-seater hypercar called Type 130. Development is well under way – we've seen exclusive full-scale model evidence – but publicly for now Lotus only showed an enigmatic silhouette render. Expect Le Mans prototype-style aero tricks and serious power and performance from the final model to be revealed later this year in London, and more sporting models from Lotus to come swiftly after. Promising.

BYD E-Seed GT

Build Your Dreams (BYD) is a Chinese supplier of electric buses to London – routes 153, 360, 507 and 521 in case you were wondering. It’s also a major manufacturer of batteries and trains and boasts being the best-selling electric car maker in the world. So far so functional, but at Shanghai BYD broke free from its practical self to unveil a gull-wing doored E-Seed GT concept created by a supergroup of western designers led by ex-Audi design boss Wolfgang Egger and ably assisted by ex-Mercedes interiors man Michele Jauch-Paganetti and ex-Ferrari exterior expert JuanMa Lopez. More about styling direction than tomorrow’s production reality and far removed from BYD’s regular electric SUVs and saloons, the E-Seed GT nonetheless shows BYD’s ambition to build some more dreams, and knowing its track record, sooner than you think.

Karma GT by Pininfarina

Another western brand resurrected by Chinese backing – even if far less established than Lotus – is the nascent US EV brand Karma. The brand’s first Revero four-door model has been on sale for a few years now and sold a few hundred in the US, but Shanghai saw the reveal of a revised version plus the far more striking two-door coupe GT alongside it. Created by legendary Italian design house Pininfarina behind almost all the great Ferraris of the late 20th-century, it presented a highly elegant future design direction for the upmarket EV Tesla rival. If we were Karma, we’d take it.

Mercedes Concept GLB

Master niche-filler Mercedes, unveiled another SUV – the small but upright seven-seat Concept GLB which will make production barely changed later this year – after chatting to Chinese customers and realising they’d missed a trick. ‘The design is a mix of G-Wagen and GLS and came as a direct result of customer feedback from China,’ Mercedes’ head of exterior design Robert Lesnik explains. ‘Not every market wants a third row, but China was keen and it will be sold worldwide, with the third row optional in European markets.’ Unlike almost every other car at the Shanghai show the GLB was shown with a 224hp four-cylinder petrol engine. But fear not EV fans, an electric version called EQB will follow in 2021.

Volkswagen ID.Roomzz concept

VW’s upcoming family of EVs are all prefaced by the ID moniker and its sixth – the ID.ROOMZZ – was revealed in Shanghai. Despite the German brand’s misplaced obsession with spelling most of its EVs with too many capital Zs – CROZZ, BUZZ and VIZZION are three others – the idea is still not sending us to sleep, as the concepts genuinely preview a change of course from the disgraced business famously caught fibbing about its diesel models’ emissions back in 2015. The ID.Roomzz – capitalisation now dropped for the sake of sanity – is VW’s seven-seat electric SUV and its clean aesthetic inside and out is firmly in line with the rest of the ID range which should lead to a more beautiful and cleaner landscape from 2021 onwards. China is a key part of that push too. VW has gone on record as saying its overall Group (including Audi, Skoda et al) aims to produce 22 million full-electric vehicles by 2028, of which it hopes 11.6 million will be sold in China. Serious and likely.

Aiways U7 ion

Yet another example of a Chinese start-up recruiting established talent from more mature automotive markets, Aiways – born in 2017 – recently hired independent designer Ken Okuyama and gave him the rather grand title of ‘chief advisor of design and art’. The Japanese veteran is best known for his work at Pininfarina, including the Ferrari Enzo, 612 Scaglietti and 599 GTB Fiorano as well as the Maserati Quattroporte. Okyama also has his own eyewear range and designs trains and bikes. In Shanghai, his first design for Aiways was the U7 ion concept, a spacious four-seater equipped with 12 high definition screens that aims to be a sanctuary for modern life. Somewhat unbelievably it boasts a self-learning robot, mounted to a roof rail inside the cabin that moves around the vehicle to offer on-board sound recognition, passenger identification and more. Okuyama is clearly convinced. ‘I chose to work for this company because they do technology in a way the Japanese and Koreans don’t,’ he explains candidly. One to watch.

Audi AI:ME

Audi’s design has been going through an awkward phase of late so it was refreshing to see and sit in the very well-resolved AI:ME megacity concept in Shanghai. Displaying bold ideas with a truly original interior it also gained bonus points for including, as far as we are aware, the first use of hanging plants in a concept car. Beyond that original aesthetic flourish, the AI:ME offers space for four people, Level 4 autonomous capability and high levels of artificial intelligence (thus the vehicle’s name). The idea behind the AI:ME is that it will learn users’ preferences over time, reacting to eye movement, voice, gesture and touch, to make each journey more tailored. So for instance, the lighting in the car only switches on when the driver approaches and the order in which the lights come on guide the user’s gaze towards the car’s various functions.

Dial in the use of material not normally associated with vehicle cabins, like Corian (which covers the door rails and touch pads), high-quality wooden struts (and those hanging plants) in the large panoramic roof area, electro-chromatically tint-able windows, and a sound system with noise cancelling to shut out traffic noise and city dwellers’ inward gaze when required, and the AI:ME creates quite a vision for shareable future city mobility. As Australian-born interior designer James Nissen explains: ‘Overall, our approach was to make the AI:ME less like a car, and more like a home.’ The best interior concept of the show by far.

INFORMATION
Auto Shanghai runs until 25 April. For more information, visit the Auto Shanghai website

ADDRESS

National Exhibition and Convention Center
333 Songze Avenue
Qingpu District
Shanghai

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The AMG logo on go-faster Mercedes cars – like the super-quick 3.2 seconds to 62mph AMG GT 4-door coupe – might be familiar to some, but the backstory of those enigmatic initials is less so. As with so many good tales, AMG’s beginnings involve talented humans pursuing their dreams against all odds. Hans Werner Aufrecht and Erhard Melcher are the stars of this history. The two engineers were working in the 1960s development department of Daimler-Benz when the company decided to discontinue its motorsport activities.

Undeterred, Aufrecht and Melcher spent their spare time in Aufrecht’s house honing the 300 SE racing engine in Grossaspach – thus the A, M and G in what would become AMG – and the resulting car went on to win ten times in the 1965 German Touring Car Championship. Fresh from that success Melcher persuaded Aufrecht to join him in a new venture founded in 1967 which has grown into the performance legend of AMG today via F1 and DTM success in motorsport plus decades of road-going car brilliance in optimising factory-fresh Mercedes-Benz vehicles.

In 2005 Mercedes’ parent company Daimler decided to acquire 100 per cent of AMG’s shares and set up the Mercedes-AMG division. The company now has its own plant in Affalterbach, close enough to Mercedes’ Sindelfingen HQ to get access to the bigger brand’s resources while still retaining a crucial independence. AMG sales have steadily increased in line with Mercedes’ wider success, with 118,204 units shipped in 2018 – five percent of total Mercedes registrations. From a business perspective AMG sales are highly profitable too, as the brand has been honed through design and marketing to further differentiate its products from regular Mercedes cars.

At the top of that road-car tree (for now) is the GT range, from the two-seater coupe and roadster, to the new GT four-door coupe, which allows families or more friends to enjoy the AMG experience via two more doors and a genuinely spacious rear seat package. AMG GT models’ vertical grille slats clearly differentiate it on the road and the ‘designo brilliant blue magno’ matt-satin paint effect turns heads on the road. Despite its otherwise stealthy elegance, those who know, really stare, but as the GT 63 S 4MATIC model we tested costs £135,550 – before £17,000 of added options – that’s got to be a large part of the point. If the AMG GT’s feel-good factor is secured before you sit behind the wheel and appreciate the quality of its fit, finish and materials – from open-pore grey ash wood to 64 LED ambient light settings – the driving experience is even more special.

The 639hp 4.0 V8 petrol engine with 9-speed paddle-shift automatic gearbox is super-quiet and refined at low speeds and remarkably easy to drive smoothly around town, but will quickly growl into life when the accelerator is pressed firmly and road conditions allow.

Five driving modes can easily be toggled through on the centre console from Comfort to Sport+ and in the S spec model a sixth Race mode is added for extra track-day ability. Awash with technology beyond its racing gadgetry – from seat sides that actively grip the driver reassuringly through corners and a widescreen infotainment screen with high resolution mapping and more – the experience is ‘king of the castle’ stuff and perhaps a little less obvious than its top-end Porsche Panamera rival. An awesome package that has come a long way from AMG’s extra-curricular origins.

INFORMATION

Mercedes-AMG GT 4-door coupe, from £121,350. For more information, visit the Mercedes-AMG website 

Earlier this month, the German luxury marque unveiled its first proper full-electric vehicle, a mid-size SUV called EQC. Yes, there have been explorations into the world of EVs from Daimler before – from a chunky early 1970s Mercedes van to a smattering of full-electric B-Classes and city cars from sister brand Smart more recently – but they were limited-run in scope and range, more tokenistic toes in the water than serious intent.

The EQC by contrast will be a mass-produced electric vehicle offering 300kW of combined power from a compact electric drivetrain at each axle for all-wheel drive characteristics and a very usable 280-mile range before re-charging. The EQC 400 – to give the car its full name – will be expensive, circa £65,000, but it heralds a range of more affordable EVs to follow under Mercedes’ new EQ sub-brand. The EQC will be available to buy from mid-2019 and the next EQ model – likely a smaller SUV akin to the existing GLA – should follow by mid-2020. Daimler’s chairman Dr Zetsche declared the moment as no less than ‘the dawn of a new era for our company’.

The EQC’s design follows the 2016 EQ concept, but in the metal the EQC projects a more conventional face than the concept’s futuristic one-piece wrap-around fascia, with lamps and grille tucked underneath. The EQC has a more regular car grille, that is actually closed off behind its horizontal bars, as EVs don’t need as much air sucked into the car from the front, but it doesn’t look that way at first glance. Alongside a very conventional SUV silhouette – the platform is shared by the hot-selling GLC – the visual message, loud and clear, is: ‘Have no fear, this a regular-looking car, just electric’. Despite the exterior similarities to the GLC, the EQC is actually longer and lower and Mercedes says every exterior element is different except the door handles and wing mirrors.

The cabin space is arguably more distinctive. The dashboard has been cutaway to make room for a wide infotainment screen similar to that in the new A-Class. The EQ’s system has some unique new features including the ability to schedule a whole week’s charging in advance by date and time. From an aesthetic perspective there are some lovely EQ-specific touches too, especially the metallic slats on the interior door panels and dash, inspired by the cooling ribs of electronic equipment.

‘We wanted to add some extra warmth to the interior too,’ global head of interiors Hartmut Sinkwitz explains, ‘and I think we have achieved it through an upper dashboard covering that feels woven like a textile but is actually stamped to look like high-tech sportswear. The finish is slightly metallic which helps give a shiny “welcome home” feeling.’ Sitting in the driver’s seat it certainly feels upmarket and slightly futuristic, which should help differentiate the EQC from the £36,000-plus regular petrol and diesel GLC range.

When a brand as significant as Mercedes starts to take electric vehicles seriously – remember that its parent company Daimler invented the car 132 years ago – it adds weight to the notion that EVs are really about to come of age.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Mercedes-Benz website

Every year since 1986, the fashion world has been invited into the modernist sanctuary of the sprawling Villa Noailles, hidden in the hills above Hyères. Installations from ready-to-wear, photography and accessory design talents stand in rooms once occupied by prototype chairs by Marcel Breuer, the textiles of Sonia Delaunay and paintings by Mondrian and Braque; the ghost of Giacometti lurks in the surrounding gardens.

The villa was built by Robert Mallet-Stevens for art patrons Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles in the late 1920s as a manifesto of modernity, with spaces dedicated to the pursuit of physical fitness. For the 33rd International Festival of Fashion and Photography, the walls of the squash court were papered in outsized celebrity portraits taken by the President of the Fashion Photography jury, Bettina Rhiems, for Details magazine in the late 1990s. The covered indoor swimming pool on the top floor hosted an exhibition of designers including Nicolas Ghesquière, Jun Takahashi and Azzedine Alaïa, curated by Haider Ackermann who presides over the Grand Prize of the Jury Première Vision. Christelle Kocher, artistic director of the House of Lemarié, laid 4.5 metres of white cotton cloth out on the terrace, inviting guests to craft delicate flower embroideries from rhinestone, silk, cotton and rhodoid.

Many of the talents dialled down the technology-first stance taking over much of the design world; creativity, craft and common sense were on intense display. In a narrow room flanked by rippled plastic columns sat the work of the ten shortlisted accessories designers, each honing their own, earthy style. Overseen by Kocher, the accessory prize is in its second year and is the only competition of its kind in Europe.

The mood was majestically millennial: part-accessory-part-protest, the duo behind Keef Palas, whose work we featured last month, showed earrings fashioned out of garlic cloves and olive leaves; Jinah Jung from South Korea collaged discarded prototype trainers donated by Le Coq Sportif into sculptural bags; Cécile Gray from Paris (who was awarded the public prize) developed a technique of making gauzy garments from steel wire during a sabbatical from her job as an architect. Piecing every junction of her windowpane-check filigree dress together took 150 hours of handwork. She said, ‘You need time to become an expert and in this busy, fast-paced world this is something we should cultivate.’

The finalists in each of the categories are chosen by a notable roll call of judges selected from more than 300 applicants. In recent times a more cross-disciplinary, collaborative approach has become de rigueur, reflecting a wider shift in attitudes to creation.

Fittingly, the Swarovski Fashion Accessories Grand Prize of the Jury went to product designers Flora Fixy and Julia Dessirier who were approached by photographer Kate Fichard to re-think the crude, perfunctory design of domestic hearing devices. The resulting project ‘H(Earring)’ sits at the junction between medicine and fashion. The judges were impressed with how the aid had been emphasised and exaggerated using wax casting and 3D modelling – its sculptural qualities rendered in precious metals. ‘Fashion is an amplifier for socio-political issues. Our jewellery is first an answer to the user’s needs, but it is a political tool too,’ the winners said.

In 2003 the Villa Noailles became an arts centre open to the public. Its cold white angles form a sharp backdrop to the corporeal business of fashion. New York based Eva O’Leary was awarded the prize for photography with her series ‘Spitting Image’, which records the seconds between reflection and the rejection of the self. O’Leary photographed teenage girls sitting in front of two-way mirrors. ‘Letting someone photograph you is such an act of trust,’ she says. ‘This project has so much to do with vulnerability and the power in it. How we see ourselves, how we wish to see ourselves – the separation between the two.’ The girls in her photographs are a generation who use their mobile phones as mirrors. ‘The project was fuelled by a frustration at having to hide perceived flaws and I could sense that many of my own insecurities were belittled in the culture at large. Working with the girls was incredibly liberating, it was as if we shared a secret and could finally talk about it. This work made me trust my instincts in a new way,’ she said.

The focus on physicality stood out in Paris-based photographer Allyssa Heuze’s work too. She was awarded the Wallpaper* ‘New Generation’ x Hyères Photography Prize for her quirky, performative series entitled ‘OÏ’. A mixture of still life and staged portraiture, Heuze’s work challenges mainstream representations of sex in a playful and metaphorical way. She will shoot a fashion story for Wallpaper*’s January 2019 ‘New Generation’ issue, our annual celebration of fresh creative talent. ‘I have the same childlike, naive mind-set with my subjects no matter what I am shooting’ she says. ‘I’m interested in everyday objects and everyday scenes… telling a story through moments that are usually banal, with humour.’ There is both an oddness and a positivity to her pictures.

The grand prize was awarded to Wallpaper* Graduate Directory 2018 designers Rushemy Botter & Lisi Herrebrugh for their collection ‘Fish Or Fight’. Billed as an ode to their shared Caribbean roots, the duo took inspiration from fishermen whose large colourful nets, worn slung over the shoulder, were translated into draped coats and louche, layered separates. ‘I sketch and from there Lisi takes the lead, translating the sketches into real garments,’ Botter said. ‘We don’t want it to look difficult. It takes a lot of technical details to give it this ease.’ Based in Antwerp, the designers – who were also nominated for the 2018 LVMH Prize earlier this year – will be granted 15,000 euros and will collaborate on a project with Chanel’s Métiers d’Art. Mercedes-Benz will also invite the duo to show during Berlin Fashion Week’s Spring 2019 collections in July.

Mercedes-Benz has supported the festival since 2012. This year, it showcased shortlisted designers from the fashion RTW category and pieces by previous winners and competitors. Last year’s grand prize winner Vanessa Schindler returned to Hyères with a collection developed in partnership with Chanel's Maison Lesage. Her work establishes a new vocabulary for fashion and uses liquid polyurethane to secure layers of fabric. ‘I had some time to visit all of the different maisons first and by January I knew exactly what I wanted to do,’ she says of the collaboration. ‘I asked them to embroider plastic and they agreed – they were so open-minded it was crazy!’

Maison Goossens produced earrings onto which Schindler poured liquid polymer. She said, ‘I work more like a sculptor in a way. But I am not an artist. I make fashion.’

The Canadian designer Marie-Ève Lecavalier received an Honourable Mention from the Jury for her MA collection entitled ‘Come Get Trippy With Us’. Described as a luxury version of the psychedelic visions of Frank Zappa's music, Lecavalier worked with thick leathers, left over and rejected from production and recycled denims. Jeans featured in each outfit either as wide trousers, or left unstitched at the crotch as skirts. The look was precise, powerful and poised. ‘I think it’s important to make things by hand,’ she said. ‘I think this attitude is coming back and that’s exciting.’

Lecavalier – who is interning at Raf Simons in Antwerp and was also awarded the Chloé Prize for her plaited leather and diamante dress – embodied the millennial pragmatism of this year’s festival: a focus on touch; a return to making special things special again; a consciousness of consumption. The new guard are battening down, working together, talking, delivering meaningful, beautifully-designed statements. ‘It’s really only about your work and how it touches people,’ she says.

INFORMATION

Hyères International Festival of Fashion and Photography took place from 26-30 April. For more information, visit the Villa Noailles website

From hybrid supercars to hi-tech campervans, Germany is pushing auto innovation into top gear. Think AI dashboards, pure electric ideals and cult concept hits. Here’s all you need to know about the very best in German motor manufacturing and design in 2018...

BMW i8 Roadster

When the BMW i8 Coupé debuted in 2014, it was like nothing else on the road. The flag bearer for the Munich manufacturer’s drive to electric propulsion, the sporting four-seater was a grand tourer with bold style and a minimal environmental footprint. Now the line-up is joined by the i8 Roadster, which retains the Coupé’s dihedral doors and replaces the rear seats with a quick-folding electric soft-top, while new battery tech increases the all-electric range. BMW now has a total of nine electrified vehicles, with an all-electric Mini waiting in the wings for 2019. Next up is the BMW iNext, a concept SUV that points the way to a pure electric future; by 2025, the company hopes to over 25 electrified cars, 12 of which will be fully electric.

BMW i8 Roadster, from £124,000, bmw.com. Photography: Leon Chew

VW ID Buzz Concept

Many credit Volkswagen’s original Type 2 as the car that shaped the company’s image. From 1950 onwards, the various Type 2 vans, campers and buses projected an image of friendly functionalism, industrious but also countercultural, with a design that was compact and reassuringly durable. The ID Buzz is the concept version of the vehicle that VW hopes will recapture those glory days. Come 2022, the all-electric descendant of this pure concept car will be silently gliding along the boulevards of the future. With seating for eight, a projected 250-mile range and more clever design touches than you’d find in three regular-sized cars, the Buzz promises to replicate its forebears’ cleverest trick and become a cult hit that’s also a commercial success.

Volkswagen ID Buzz, concept only, volkswagen.com. Photography: Leon Chew

Porsche Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid

If there’s a more complete supercar on the market, we’ve yet to find it. Serving as our photographer’s trusty steed for the epic road trip behind this story, the new Turbo S E-Hybrid version of the Panamera combines space with pace, and pure dynamics with a veritable deluge of technology. Under its sleek bodywork is a turbocharged V8 mated to an electric motor and a hefty chunk of batteries. The result is a car that can glide silently and emission-free in EV mode, but still tear it up on the Autobahn, with a scarcely credible 3.4 second sprint time, thanks to instant electric torque. The finely detailed interior is perhaps the gold standard of what a tech-centric luxury sports car should look like inside. This is the ultimate hybrid machine and Porsche’s own all-electric saloon arrives next year.

Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid, from £137,140, porsche.com. Photography: Leon Chew

Mercedes-Benz CLS

The CLS-Class has been led by design since the first swoopy saloon was launched back in 2005. Now on its third generation, it’s still the machine of choice for those who want a sober saloon with a subtle hint of class. Shown here as a 4MATIC four-wheel drive 400d in special Edition 1 trim, the CLS has the option of accommodating Mercedes-Benz’s cutting-edge driver assistance technology, widely seen as a stepping stone to the next level of  autonomous driving. The top-of-the-line 450 model also incorporates EQ Boost, a new ‘mild’ hybrid system that throws in a few more electric horsepower to help with acceleration. Add in the optional Widescreen cockpit, which scatters the dashboard with panoramic display screens, and you have a classically elegant car that fuses traditional style with the building blocks for tomorrow.

Mercedes-Benz CLS, from £57,510, mercedes-benz.com. Photography: Leon Chew

As originally featured in the April 2018 issue of Wallpaper* (W*229)

Audi Elaine Concept

By the end of 2018, Audi will have had an image overhaul unlike any before. For decades the face of rock-solid German dependability and classically modern design, the brand is embracing an electric future with gusto. First up this autumn will be the E-tron SUV, a conventionally-styled pure electric challenger to Tesla et al. It’ll be followed by a more stylish Sportback sibling, previewed here in the shape of the Elaine Concept. That personable name is no mere placeholder; it shows the company trying to humanise its rather aloof image. The core technology is Audi AI, with autonomous functions ranging from self-driving highway mode to self-parking, charging and even washing. This is all still future thinking, but the recently launched Audi Smart Energy Network pilot project – a home charger system designed to integrate with the power grid – shows the electric road ahead.

Audi Elaine, concept only, audi.com. Photography: Leon Chew

The designers and engineers at Mercedes must spend their time spinning rooms full of plates, such is the diversity of the products the company creates. At precisely the same time the company’s stand at the Tokyo Motor Show was extolling the virtues of compact, quasi-autonomous city cars, a large lorry was disgorging a shiny new Mercedes-AMG GT C Roadster for Wallpaper* to assess.

Compare and contrast the modest, neat and subtle visions the company has for the roads of tomorrow with the screaming, howling drama generator that is the AMG GT. As the first standalone model of the Mercedes-AMG performance division, the GT had a lot of expectations to match up to. It arrived in late 2014 to plenty of plaudits – we loved it for its classic GT elegance.

Refined elegance is only a small part of the story. Throughout its history Mercedes has had a hand in some of the best-looking racing cars of all time. It’s only in recent decades that the company’s image has shifted more and more towards the luxury end of the market. Sure, there have been the occasional limited-run supercars and the epically enhanced products of the AMG division, but the baseline has always been refinement and elegance.

Mercedes is on a mission to conquer everything. While we were getting to grips with the GT C’s bark and bite, the company was busy readying its contender for the ultimate crown – the hypercar. Alongside its diminutive smart vision EQ fortwo, the Tokyo stage featured the AMG Project One, a multi-million pound rival to forthcoming contenders from Aston Martin, McLaren, Ferrari, et al. Among motoring’s elite manufacturers, the race is on to create a road car capable of outclassing a Formula 1 machine or Le Mans contender. Given that the humble automobile is facing more and more challenges, these baroque extravagances, with their elaborate styling and engineering, feel like the last days of all that the industry has held dear for so long.

Project One is still a few years away, and we suspect it’ll be far more refined than the casually brutish GT C. Without a roof, the two-seater loses some of its visual fluidity, but also gives you a shocking insight into the sonic turbulence this car leaves in its wake. The V8 engine is channelled through a titanically loud exhaust system, with a ‘Sport’ button that might as well be labelled ‘look at me’, such is the crackle and snap it produces. Rock hard suspension, cacophonous noise and a wide, wide body make the GT C a fidgety companion in the city. In any case, cars like this are rapidly heading for urban extinction. The GT C is fine company providing you can find a far-flung reserve of decent road to enjoy it while you still can.

INFORMATION

Mercedes-AMG GT C, from £126,545

The 2017 Tokyo Motor Show was notable for the increasing number of autonomous car concepts emerging from the lab into what manufacturers expect to be an almost completely computer-controlled future. Most of these machines came from Japanese manufacturers, keen to demonstrate their technological sophistication once more, but there was a strong showing from the Germans. Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi, BMW and Mercedes all had a big presence, but it was the latter that truly embraced the Tokyo aesthetic. The new Mercedes-Benz Concept EQA was paired up with the Smart Vision EQ Fortwo to showcase Daimler’s vision of autonomous electric urban driving.

The latter car is an enhanced vision of the next-generation smart car. After spending a week in the company of the most sophisticated smart on the market – the Smart Fortwo Cabrio electric drive – it’s hard to see how much more the experience could be improved. Stripping out the Smart’s tiny engine in favour of an electric motor doesn’t do it many favours in terms of weight and ride, but the diminutive machine has a bit of zip. The tiny turning circle makes you the master of the dead end, while the open roof gives you all the urban feedback you’ll ever need. The go-kart qualities of the smart make urban driving a breeze, so it’s hard to see how autonomy could enhance it.

The company took the opportunity of displaying its cars against the neon-drenched backdrop of downtown Tokyo, with a quick detour to showcase the smart concepts alongside Atelier Tekuto’s iconic concrete house. These are appropriate spots for small city cars, especially with their information-dense interiors and exterior screens that will all add to the urban tapestry.

We spoke to Katharina Becker, Daimler’s communications manager for digital vehicle and future technologies, to find out what lies on the road ahead...

W*: How central will autonomous driving be to the Mercedes-Benz of tomorrow?
KB: At Mercedes-Benz we are developing self-driving cars in two different ways. We pursue the evolutional approach by progressively increasing our driver assistance systems step-by-step. The new S-Class for example is another major step towards autonomous driving with new and significantly expanded driver assistance systems. The other way is to develop self-driving functions right away – the revolutionary approach so to speak. Imagine a car2go that comes to you whenever you need one or automated valet parking, where your car parks itself in a parking garage while you are in the elevator to your meeting already. This idea represents the new Smart Vision EQ Fortwo.

W*: Which cities do you see adopting autonomy first?
KB: At the moment we are testing different traffic situations all over the world, or to be precise: in five different continents with our Intelligent World Drive. Driving in Frankfurt, Shanghai, Sydney and Melbourne, Johannesburg and Los Angeles gives a very good impression which challenges an autonomous driving car has to face. Traffic lights for each lane, traffic signs with text, pedestrians, bicyclists, buses, trams, specific rules for each country or even each city. Therefore there is still a long way to go, before autonomous driving will be a daily routine in inner city traffic.

W*: What aspects of autonomous driving will be the most beneficial?
KB: For Mercedes-Benz autonomous driving means more comfort, more safety and more time for the customers: In the future they do not need to drive anymore in boring or stressful situation like the daily commuting to work or on long distance highway trips. While the car is doing the driving they can relax and use the time for other things like reading, watching movies or working. Another beneficial aspect of autonomous driving may be that user who are today not able to drive because they are disabled, too young or are just feeling insecure and uncomfortable with the daily traffic can use the comfort and safety of an autonomous driving car, some of them for the first time, some of them again.

W*: How will design – interior and exterior – accommodate these changes in how we use and perceive cars?
KB: There will be plenty of new opportunities especially in interior design. The Smart Vision EQ Fortwo is the first car from Daimler without any steering wheel. Its interior design focuses on space, privacy and seamless entertainment. In the exterior visual communication will be key. While the smart communicates with its headlights and a colourful display in the front, the Mercedes-Benz F015 luxury in motion can even project information for pedestrians via laser onto the street.

W*: Will autonomous driving work across all sectors of the market?
KB: We believe that autonomous driving affects all sectors. Therefore within the Daimler AG we work together across all division: we introduced the autonomous driving truck with Highway Pilot, last year in Amsterdam we presented the autonomous driving bus, in 2015 Mercedes-Benz Cars showed with the F015 Luxury in motion their vision from an autonomous driving car that also communicates with its environment. But you even do not need to own a autonomous driving car in the future: with the Smart Vision EQ Fortwo we recently showed how the future of car sharing can look like.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Mercedes-Benz website and the Smart website

Mercedes-Benz makes beautiful coupés. It always has done, ever since the 1920s and 30s, when its two-door cars stood a head and shoulders above everything else. Fashions in car styling have come and gone, but the way in which Mercedes has managed to create beauty out of a simple two-door body shape has been undiminished by the era, from the sharp edged 70s through to the bulbous nineties and beyond. Admittedly, a coupé is an increasingly anachronistic symbol of a certain kind of elegance, which along with a well tailored suit or dress, is gradually receding into irrelevance.

The new E-Class coupé continues this happy aesthetic adventure with aplomb. The svelte cousin of the rather more prosaic E-Class saloon and estate, best known in Europe as the go-to choice of taxi drivers, mini-cab owners and middle class families, the coupé is an altogether more sybaritic experience, one that speaks of luxury but not of excess, and of the fundamental pleasures of ample power and fine design. The company’s two-door, fixed-head models are its finest aesthetic achievement. As well as the E, there’s the C-Class and the Mercedes-AMG GT, a brace of three of the best-looking cars you can buy right now. Admittedly they’re rather old fashioned when compared to the progressive vision of tomorrow’s autonomous vehicles, which eschew sleek forms in favour of rather more prosaic forms.

That’s the future. Right now, you can order the E-Class coupé just like any other conventional car, petrol or diesel, although there is a fair amount of Mercedes’ excellent self-driving tech on board, capable of competent lane-keeping and speed-maintaining duties, as long as you check in with a regular squeeze of the wheel. E-Class coupé buyers aren’t likely to be swayed by the ability to ‘check in’ with their elegant steeds, however. Despite the ever-increasing sophistication of quasi-autonomous systems, this is a car for enjoying on high days and holidays, for driving without any particular ambition or destination. In this spec, with a V6 engine and discrete four-wheel drive, progress is hushed, unruffled and only remotely ragged if you chose to drop all semblance of human decency and hammer at the pedals. Which of course, you won’t, because the interior ambience and overall refinement is such that any thoughts of crudity are effectively suppressed.

Without having to compete with BMW’s puppyish obsession with dynamics, or Audi’s relentless focus on design, Mercedes has let itself sit back and concentrate on refinement, safe in the knowledge that it can get within close enough to its rivals in every way that matters. The Mercedes-Benz sometimes seems to drift in a timeless limbo, for the company cars with a classic twist. As long as luxury and style look back to a golden age, a Mercedes coupé will probably always be at the top of someone’s wishlist.

INFORMATION

Mercedes E-Class E 400 4MATIC AMG Line Coupé, from £50,775. For more information, visit the Mercedes-Benz website

MERCEDES-BENZ CARS

American Sports stadiums have a long history of innovation, including the world’s first retractable roof sports stadium (Pittsburgh’s now-demolished Civic Arena, 1961), the first multi-purposed domed stadium (Houston’s Astrodome, 1965), and North America’s first retractable grass field (University of Phoenix Stadium, 2006).

But with few exceptions, that spirit of innovation has experienced a lull, according to HOK design principal Bill Johnson, brought on by a sense that nostalgia, luxury boxes, and larger and larger jumbotrons have become more important than spectacular design. That is, until the opening of his firm’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, home to the Atlanta Falcons football team and Atlanta United FC soccer team.

The signature of the new facility, located just next to Atlanta’s Georgia Dome on the western edge of Downtown, is its ‘Ocular Roof’, which features eight ETFE-clad petals that slide past each other simultaneously on steel trusses, simulating an opening flower or camera aperture, and eliciting more than a few gaping expressions. The apparatus – emblazoned, of course, with the Mercedes-Benz logo – can open or close in about ten minutes.

‘The most important spot on the football field is the 50-yard line,’ says Johnson. ‘We thought, “What if we created a roof that opened from the centre and moved away?”’ Another inspiration, it turned out, was the Pantheon in Rome, whose central oculus was designed to focus light, and attention, on the emperor’s entry.

The roof’s lightweight ETFE membrane allows natural light to filter inside, as does the building’s ‘Window to the City’, a floor-to-ceiling glass curtain wall that directs views east toward Downtown Atlanta. The rest of the stadium contains eight triangular steel and glass sections whose angular sides echo the logo of the Atlanta Falcons, and create a stunning imprint on the Atlanta skyline.

The stadium does still contain a jumbotron. But HOK rethought that too, creating what it calls the ‘halo board’, a six storey-tall, curved screen ringing the circumference of the roof opening. Digital displays change and move along its length, creating unique views throughout the seating bowl.

Moving through the stadium, you experience more surprises, from an art collection of more than 50 pieces, curated by the nearby Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD); to a ‘front porch’, a public plaza just outside the structure highlighted by a 41ft tall, 73,000 pounds steel falcon sculpture.

‘We said from the outset we wanted a building that was unique to Atlanta and didn’t fit the phrase “this reminds me of”,’ says Rich McKay, president and CEO of the Atlanta Falcons. If this place reminds you of something else, please let us know.

INFORMATION
For more information, visit the HOK website