{"id":14950,"date":"2016-09-16T10:03:27","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T08:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/autodesignmagazine.com\/en\/?p=14950"},"modified":"2017-02-21T08:58:38","modified_gmt":"2017-02-21T07:58:38","slug":"mercedes-benz-classe-emozione-intelligenza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/autodesignmagazine.com\/en\/2016\/09\/mercedes-benz-classe-emozione-intelligenza\/","title":{"rendered":"MERCEDES-BENZ E-CLASS, EMOTION AND INTELLIGENCE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now in its tenth generation, the E-Class remains the symbol of Mercedes. \u201cIt embodies the very idea of the company\u201d, says Gorden Wagener, Head of Design for the Daimler Group: \u201cIt is the core of our brand, the backbone of the company\u201d. So it would have been unthinkable for the car to turn its back on the German company\u2019s design philosophy, which focuses on a concept of modern luxury obtained by applying sensual purity, the combination of emotion and intelligence, beauty and technology that has been the hallmark of the cars from Sindelfingen for several years now. \u201c<\/p>\n<\/div>

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The new E-Class completes the programme to revamp our three basic models. After the S-Class three years ago and the C-Class a year later, it conveys the same family feeling, but this homogeneity has not excluded a new approach, a refinement, replacing the \u2018dropping line\u2019 of the other two models with a more elegant \u2018catwalk line\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt embodies the best proportions that a saloon could have,\u201d comments Robert Lesnik, who is responsible for the exterior. Then his eyes light up as he talks about the station wagon version: \u201cIt has a sportier, less boxy, look than the previous model. It is also smaller, but still the most generous in its segment.\u201d \u201cA quality leap,\u201d Wagener confirms: \u201cIt is a sleek, sexy, elegant, functional station wagon that looks more like a shooting brake. Seen from behind, with its strong shoulders, it looks so broad and low slung that you could mistake it for a sports car.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>

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The saloon is 43 mm longer than the previous model, with a 65 mm longer wheelbase (and an elongated version has also been presented for the Chinese market, with an even more generous wheelbase and a third side window). A sleek profile evolves out of the longer bonnet and follows the line of the roof, like a coup\u00e9, blending finally into the tail whose broad shoulders the designers define as \u201csensual\u201d. Short overhangs, a long wheel base, large wheels and sleek sides rewrite the line that defines the car\u2019s sinuous profile \u2013 the so-called \u201ccatwalk\u201d line, which Wagener describes as \u201cthe most successful chosen for the three saloons\u201d. The tail, with muscular shoulders on the rear wheelarches, conveys a strong personality, like the light clusters which are designed with Mercedes\u2019 customary painstaking attention to detail, while the rear lights adopt the new \u201cstardust\u201d effect.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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\u201cWe concentrated above all on the volumes and the treatment of the surfaces\u201d, Lesnik underlines: \u201cWe take our inspiration increasingly from the line of the CLS, and from the next generation, the treatment of the surfaces will play an even more important role.\u201d Begun in 2012, the E-Class project started from a sketch by Thomas S\u00e4lzle which was chosen over ideas put forward \u2013 as usual \u2013 by all the Mercedes design facilities. After eight 1:4 scale models, four 1:1 models were developed, until the design was frozen three years ago. \u201cIn terms of sensual purity,\u201d Lesnik states, \u201cthis is the most intelligent executive car.\u201d In fact the car is fitted with driver assistance systems which make it a car that practically drives itself.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Then there is the interior. \u201cThis is possibly even more successful than the exterior,\u201d Wagener underlines: \u201cFirst on the S, then on the C and now on the E, we have created an interior that is more luxurious than ever before, but also very high-tech\u201d. Together with quality materials and top level ergonomics, digital equipment plays an increasingly important role. This is now in the hands of Klaus Frenzel, Director of Digital Graphic and Corporate Design. \u201cWe strove to achieve graphic perfection,\u201d states Frenzel: \u201cEven the infotainment must reflect our philosophy and our design language, the bipolarity between emotion and intelligence; in other words on one hand the sensuality that comes from the use of lights, pictures and animation, and on the other, the intelligence that consists in reducing the number of elements to make everything more instinctive. In the graphics we must respect every pixel\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Born from an idea of Jan Kaul, it was initially in competition with another idea studied at the Como facility, and then developed by Hans-Peter Wunderlich, under the supervision of Hartmut Sinkwitz, the Director of Interior Design, the E-Class passenger compartment is \u201celegant, but sportier than the S\u201d, Sinkwitz says. \u201cWe wanted the same icons: the digital cluster, the four large air vents, the fluid shapes, the dashboard that flows seamlessly into the doors and the extremely comfortable seats. Classic, sophisticated solutions, with an extra touch of sportiness.\u201d But always from the perspective of sensual purity, which is \u201chot and cool\u201d. \u201cThese contradictions create harmony, between high tech elements<\/p>\n

and other, more organic elements like the seats, which are extremely creative, and soft to touch, and the wonderful colour combinations devised by Claudia Braun, responsible for Colour & Trim, which are a blend of elegance and modernity. Take, for example, the use of black with brown, or two shades of brown, or woven metal as an alternative to aluminium, or different combinations of wood.\u201d<\/p>\n

Full article in Auto&Design no. 220<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>

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