Mercedes-Benz will make waves at this year's Los Angeles auto show. But it won't all because of the pending world debut of the new CLS63 AMG. No, the talk of the show is set to center around a spectacular-looking Mercedes-Benz concept called the Biome.
Created at Mercedes-Benz's advanced design studio in Carlsbad, Calif., the sleek four-seater hails from the fertile mind of studio head Hubert Lee--the man behind the aggressive new look of the second-generation CLS unveiled at the Paris motor show and the F700 Style concept car wheeled out at this year's Geneva motor show.
Don't expect the Biome to be featured on the Mercedes-Benz stand in Los Angeles, though. Word is that Mercedes-Benz's latest concept, a full-sized model, will be revealed to the public for the first time at the prize-giving ceremony for the Los Angeles Design Challenge, the competition for which it was originally conceived but which the German carmaker ultimately decided to instead enter two other concepts, the Smart 454 Weight Watch Technology from its Sindelfingen-based studio in Germany and the Maybach eRikscha from its Yokahama-based studio in Japan.
The 2010 Los Angeles Design Challenge called for the creation a safe and comfortable two-plus-two-configured compact car that weighs no more than 1,000 pounds. The Biome has been built to these parameters, with what Lee describes as a biofiber body that he says grows in a completely organic environment from seeds sown in a nursery and sees it tip the scales at just 875.5 pounds.
The concept, at 158.3 inches long and 98.4 inches wide, also boasts a diamond-shaped seating arrangement that sits the driver in the middle up front, two passengers slightly further back on either side and a third passenger in the back, facing the rear.
Lee denies that the styling of the Biome is related to any upcoming Mercedes-Benz model, describing it as “pure fantasy.” But with rumors circulating about the prospect of an upcoming mid-engine model from Mercedes-Benz, its unveiling is likely to increase speculation of a possible supercar out of Stuttgart.
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