skrontz

That's why MB has two relatively large sedans -- CLS and S. While CLS buyers indeed look for the modern "sporty" look, most S drivers prefer the monumental conservative appearance rather than busy lines and ridges.

zelement

So you rather drive around in a 99 s500 instead of a 06 s500?

skrontz

Absolutely! W140 has way more character, just like W221.

220S

I've always felt that Gorden Wagener is the Mercedes version of Chris Bangle. And I question his design aesthetic and whether it will have any staying power in the long run.

Here's a comment I saw on a BMW forum: "Mercedes Benz is confused when it comes to styling. Their cars used to be timeless looking, now they look like a trendy pair of sneakers that no one will want next year."

That's probably a bit extreme, but interestingly enough this article in Bloomberg also brings up that same thinking: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-0...er-buyers.html

hyperion667

“They needed to shake off the conservativism to get the street presence that gets noticed,” said Cameron McNaughton, a consultant at Rojek Consulting Group in Hillsborough, North Carolina,

wow! HB on the map!

220S

It's somewhat ironic that McNaughton is also an adviser to Audi which probably has the most conservative design currently of all the manufacturers.

What he goes on to say is that buyers are now becoming less interested in cars, and so they will simply gravitate towards a different design “The next generation of potential car buyers is less interested in cars, so there is a need to engage them in the brand that’s different and design is a critical factor.” That kind of implies that it's all about the wrapping and not the car as a whole....

Hyperion, I used to teach at Duke. There are a lot of consultants and think tanks in the Triangle. Not that unusual to see citations come out of there.

kalortpor

I still think the W221 stands out even today (welll....of course it's still in production!), but I find it hard to criticize MB when the W220 "less is more" ethos was widely panned and critics were ultimately proven correct, yet MB listened and went back to the drawing board and the old days with robust engineering and presence with what I believe is a groundbreaking design (how many cars do you see now with the downward sloping body character line on the sides...practically all of them these days! I wouldn't doubt to see more manufacturers next start copying the 3 sloping CLS-style lines in the coming years).

They're also refining their lineup with a consistent philosophy, not completely throwing out models and replacing them with flavor-of-the-day designs all the time. People could probably make a point that they are being too conservative even!

I think Mercedes is striking a good balance between past and future at this point. The new A8 has an awesome interior (if anything, I hope the base W222 does away with the extent of plastic use in the interior, especially with some S550s stickering at $130,000, just too close to what S600s went for not long ago. Sadly, that does not seem to be the trend), but it looks too much like the old car, especially in profile.