Mercedes design ethic blends hot and cool

DETROIT -- Mercedes-Benz’ top designer said the brand’s design philosophy follows two simple principles.

“It should be cool,” Gorden Wagener said at the 2017 Automotive News World Congress today, “and it should be hot.”

While those attributes are typically seen as opposites, he explained, both can coexist in designs.

“Being hot is about falling in love,” he said. “It’s about beauty and in the end it’s about the sex appeal in the design that makes cars so desirable.”

As for the cool side, Wagener said it’s the reaction that someone gets when they see something that grabs their interest the first time.

Wagener said Mercedes-Benz has to apply this philosophy to every touch point of the brand, not just cars, including exhibition booths, showroom design and corporate identity.

Wagener said that “design time” is in 2025, not 2017 meaning that designers like himself are always thinking in the future.

“Today, it’s about, as far as I understood, about the future and that’s actually the right thing for us as designers, as we are living into the future,” Wagener said.

At last year’s Paris auto show, Mercedes-Benz gave the public its first look at the EQ subbrand, which is scheduled to debut in 2020 and ultimately include 10 electric-drive vehicles. The Generation EQ concept vehicle was a smooth-surface, futuristic take on the electric vehicle -- notably modern, but not jarring.

“EQ will have its own design language, Wagener said.

At the same time, he noted, the EQ line has to share Mercedes-Benz’s values and core philosophies but with a different execution, much like the AMG and Maybach lines.

“I’m truly convinced that the customer wants a beautiful product,” Wagener said. “He does not want a strange looking product just to say ‘I’m electric.’”

Wagener says the 2018 Mercedes-Benz E class coupe, shown at the Detroit auto show this week, represents version 2.0 of the automaker’s “sensual purity” design language.

The design language started with vehicles such as the S-class coupe and the E class sedan, which was shown at last year’s Detroit show.

A refreshed S class is expected this summer, but Wagener doesn’t think Mercedes needs to make major changes with the flagship sedan, noting the vehicle’s success.

“I think the car is very perfect as it is,” he said.