What Does the Mercedes F125 Have in Common With Seinfeld’s Girlfriend?

by Jason M. Gross
MB World

Remember the Seinfeld episode where Jerry’s girlfriend Gwen’s attractiveness waxes and wanes depending on the lighting? Well, the Mercedes concept for the S Class model in 2025 has a similar problem–from certain angles, it looks quite sleek, but from others, in particular the side view, it looks awkward, uninteresting, and simply too long.

Nevertheless, in crafting the design and powertrain concept for the
F125, Mercedes has made a bold statement on the direction it wants to
take its brand after what will have been 125 years of contributions to
the world of automobiles. What is that statement? That consumers can
have their cake and eat it too: the equivalent of 87 mpg in a
high-performance full-sized luxury saloon with a sporty design.

With its fast roofline and downward sloping hood, the design is sleek
and modern more than upright and elegant. But this is only true from
the front and the oblique angle – something about the single gullwing
door (when closed) is off-putting when viewing the car from a 180-degree
angle. From head-on, the headlights look slant eyed and too thin. I
believe the designers should enlarge them while maintaining the curved
triangular shape of the lights. In addition, the Mercedes star needs to
be implanted on the front of the vehicle in between the air intake
slats. The hood ornament is just not audacious enough for this attempt
at a groundbreaking design. Some dimensions would need to be adjusted
but I think it could be done.

In addition to the gullwing doors, 3-D interior display, and cloud based
telematics system, the vehicle is slated to use four electric motors
(paired with each wheel), powered by a fuel cell that stores hydrogen in
a series of metal-organic framework (MOF) storage vessels that can be
integrated with the car’s body to save space and weight. Of course,
there would need to be a hydrogen infrastructure in place to fuel
automobiles such as the F125. The advantage of a hydrogen powered fuel
cell is that compared to a traditional Electric Vehicle, the “fueling”
is much more rapid than electrically charging a battery, which can take
up to 8 hours or more for some cars. Mercedes also claims the range of
this vehicle would be equivalent to that of an internal combustion
engine–at more than 600 miles.

The concept car is expected to weigh just 3750 pounds, 850 pounds fewer
than the current S400 hybrid. This is due to the use of carbon fiber,
aluminum, and other lightweight materials. Thanks to its reduced mass
and torque heavy electric powertrain, Mercedes estimates the F125 will
reach 62 mph in only 4.9 seconds.

Overall, this futuristic flagship concept features a unique combination
of features but I’m afraid that unlike Gwen, it needs more than a mere
lighting adjustment for its true beauty to shine through.


What you think about the F-125? Hot or not? Head over to the Forum and see what members are saying about it!