Page 99 - Sharp September 2023

“We’ve got this great potential,” says Wagener, “because no other brand has our history. When you see mainstream designs these days, they all look pretty much alike. Many electric cars don’t even have a grille, which makes them ‘faceless,’ so one looks like the others. They lack identity. But we have that identity.
“We take inspiration from something,” he says, “and make something new and contemporary, but we do it in a retro way, rather than just copy-and-pasting something old into the future. You can see that with the One-Eleven. It’s not the C111; it’s a whole new car. It’s super-modern, super-clean, simple — and we love simplicity.”
The Vision One-Eleven’s co-axial flux motor, however, is anything but simple. Built by Oxford-educated engineers at YASA, a British startup, the pioneering new powertrain is around a third of the size of existing electric motors, yet considerably more powerful. This is the first Mercedes to feature the innovation (the carmaker acquired YASA in 2021), and its application here ensures that the concept’s mechanical workings remain in line with Wagener’s state-of-the-art designs. But how heavily are these designs influenced by what lies beneath the bodywork?
“For me, it’s kind of a chicken-and-egg principle,” says Wagener.
“What comes first? The technical layout or the design vision? Of course, I like to start with design — but that’s not free art. It still must refer to at least some platforms and architectures.
“Whatever we do,” he adds, “we try to build the house right, get the proportions as good as we can — small overhangs, big wheels. Cabins can’t get too high, especially with electrification and six- inch battery packs that need storing. So whenever there’s a new architecture, we do these Vision models and work together with engineering to make our dreams come true.”
This latest realised dream, the vibrant Vision One-Eleven, marks a genuine turning point on the Mercedes-Benz road map. It’ll turn heads, sure, but it also signals the mechanical future of the marque and the potential of those phenomenal new YASA powertrains. It is, in Wagener’s words, the perfect example of his third (and preferred) concept category: show cars.
“People are just more inspired when you do a show car,” he says, “because from a show car you can create a good production car. But this is step one in that process: trying to create a vision that is more than just a production car. You want to make a statement. You want to make something potentially iconic.”
SHARPMAGAZINE.COM
SEPTEMBER 2023 99
AUTO