Zoomi Life

At first glance, you see this F-CELL Roadster and say “what the…?”  Then you either like it or hate it.  Personally, I really like it. This is one of the coolest concepts I’ve seen in a long time.  The design is from junior employees at Mercedes who used the project as a learning exercise–the up-and-comer’s OTJ training.

The F-CELL is a 21st century power plant, producing 1.2kW, a top speed of 25km/h and a range of 350km. This car isn’t meant to be “highway ready,” but true to it’s retro-tech look, is a throwback to the long, slow driving days of the carriage.

New and old technologies blend beautifully in this Roadster design. Carbon-fiber buckets are covered in hand-stitched leather and the steering wheel is replaced with a drive-by-wire joystick.  The bodywork is a combination of fiberglass and tooled wood.  The basis for the form is the 1886 Benz Patent Motor Car.

The idea behind the project was to combine old and new in all concepts.  The trainees were melding futuristic drive train technologies with old world style and current vehicle design. In all, the year-long project involved 150 trainees (both junior-level employees and students) who got hands-on with the experience and learned valuable team-building design as well.

Really cool, even if it will never actually exist.

Source: AutoblogGreen