Mercedes will give a fundamental turnaround again in the coming years: The Stuttgart car manufacturer will present a comprehensive new design strategy at the IAA car show in September, which is intended to underline the prestige claim of the luxury brand and at the same time of the inventor of the automotive. Starting with the electrically powered mid-range SUV, which is probably presented under the name GLC at the IAA car show, the Mercedes front is to be shaped again by a three-dimensional chrome-plated cooler. At that time the grill had a function, it served as a cover for the engine’s water cooler. But the newly presented electric cars no longer need that. Rather, the new grill should give Mercedes’ vehicles again. It is no longer permeable to air, but consists of an elaborate chrome frame, a grid structure, behind it, smoke glass and lighting the entire contour. The Mercedes star is emblazoned in the middle of the cooler at the electrical mid-range SUV, but also over the grill for future models. The historical, technically functional grill of the GLC can be refined with 942 individual light points. They should also enable pixel graphics in the future. Mercedes sees a way to “bring to life” the front to the traditional Mercedes-Lookjede new brand from China is currently looking for opportunities to present an identity, said the CEO of Mercedes-Benz, Ola Källenius, when presenting the concept. “It makes sense that a brand that has such an identity also presents it.” The grill on the family tree of the Mercedes design since the times of Wilhelm Maybach and also gives the car presence accordingly: “This is a very clear Mercedes look that cannot be confused with anything else.” The endeavor to give the cars from Mercedes a striking, unmistakable appearance also has its roots of the manager. Again and again he tells how he played in the streets of Danderyd, a community northwest of Stockholm – and always knew exactly which neighbor had a Mercedes and in front of what property a car was regularly parked with the star on the hood. “Even if I was only flashed by and only saw the vehicles from the corner of the eye, it was always clear to me which car is a Mercedes and which not,” says the Mercedes boss. “I always recognized the front with the honeycomb grill.” Representative: The chrome grill of the first Mercedes S-Class from 1972.Mercedes-Benz Agder Grill becomes the decisive character of the car. The beginnings were in a prosaic technical development: originally the grill and the cooler worn in the Daimler from 1901 were one and the same. The WabeDesign, which was then retained for 90 years, should initially simply guarantee the best possible cooling and also mechanical stability of the cooler. This model also shaped model history because it was the first to be a “Mercedes”. Later, the cooler became a less respectable part of many gray slamels, which was then preceded by the models of the United Daimler-Benz company as a representative grill. the American brands, where sultry chrome should simply symbolize luxury at the front. The grills of Mercedes were still narrow and high at first, later always wider. The “democratized” grill of the nineties in 1991 was presented with a new S-Class with the W140 series shorter, the mood was revealed: The big Mercedes was criticized as an exaggerating blob because of its dimensions and shapes, with which Mercedes the opulence too have driven far. The then Mercedes chief designer Bruno Sacco reacted to this atmosphere with a series of filigree and slim-appearing follow-up series of the Mercedes S-Class. Above all, he immediately put your hand on the opulent grill: Instead of the three -dimensional chrome part, there was only a simple two -dimensional grill for all Mercedes, embedded in the painted bonnet. The Mercedes face was “democratized”, Bruno Sacco said the F.A.Z. This step also fit at a time when Mercedes was preparing to no longer search for new customers with small and compact cars of the A and B-Class in the upper middle class and upper class of drivers, but in all layers of society. Reserved and “democratized” grill, embedded in the painted bonnet, here at the first Mercedes C-Class from 1993.Mercedes-Benz Agnoch, the grill finally took a background when Mercedes 2021 presented only a flat plastic package instead of the grills with the presentation of the electrically powered luxury class EQ. The closed design element should communicate that the car behind it no longer needed a grill because electrically powered. Although electric motors or batteries also need cooling, but there is no water cycle that requires a slat cooler behind a grill at the front. The new electric cars from China therefore generally do without any reminiscence of the grill that was previously necessary. The new style is promoted by the fact that in electric cars in the front car no longer has to accommodate a motor block with extensive side aggregates. In the combustion car, the engine block and safety regulations to protect against pedestrians – which require a minimum distance between the bonnet and the hard engine – ensure large and build -up space in the front car, which then also had to be concealed with a grill. In contrast, the bonnet can run much flatter with the electric car. The possibility of a flat front hood and a short front car also used the Mercedes EQs and its smaller brother EQE.Flop my face for the electric cars, this pronounced electric car design was not particularly well received by the Mercedes customers. With this form, few attached few things to express that they had progressed and already switched to an electric drive. Too many apparently found the design too little Mercedes-detached, too anonymous and with too much similarity to the many Asian electric cars with a flat snout, but with a little characteristic face. Weak success: Mercedes EQS, luxury sedan with electric drive, flat snout and only hinted-at-a-gripped grill.Mercedes-Benz Agmercedes now wants to show flag again with the new cooler-like front in technical sign and build on the prestigious forms of earlier times. Therefore, the new Mercedes face should be introduced as quickly as possible, with refreshments or presentations of new models. The important volume models of the C-Class and E-Class with the new Mercedes face will soon come onto the market. Not least in the Chinese market, where Mercedes was last weak, the new “face” with a reminiscence of traditional prestige and yet a lot of “techno” should give the models of the Stuttgart Group a contemporary and yet luxurious status. Above all, the Mercedes vehicles should stand out more from the crowd again. More on the topic of Källenius, there is an arc from the experiences of his childhood in Sweden to the Mercedes design of the future: As he as a child recognized as a child from the corner of the eye, every driver should experience if a vehicle of the Mercedes brand appears in the rear-view mirror: “ The car is – and the honeycomb grill is sure.
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