Earlier today, the Autocar inbox received a very interesting e-mail from a chap who only identified himself as ‘Chris’.
My guess is that ‘Chris’ is a car designer, because he’s noticed something very intriguing about Mercedes’ latest concept car, pointing out a remarkable resemblance between it’s rear and the rear of the cancelled BMW CS limo.
Although not identical – the Mercedes F800 has clearly developed the basic CS design theme – the look is remarkably similar.
Chris points that Karim Habib, one of the top designers at BMW – he was responsible for both the new 7-series and CS concept – also worked on the new Mercedes.
Habib unexpectedly
jumped ship from BMW and joined Mercedes-Benz team last year.
Chris reminds us that
Autocar reported this move last March: "Canadian-born Habib will be responsible for the F series cars, the concepts and experimental cars that Mercedes uses to develop its future design themes. Recent F cars include the F700 and F400.
These are cars that will influence not the next generation of Mercedes but the one after that – cars that won’t be on the market for another decade."
Well, it looks as if Habib was loathe to let some of the great ideas that made up the CS concept go to waste…
I might add my own thought, having been reminded of the CS’s impressive rear-end. Picture the E39 5-series, the last model before the Bangle revolution. Now imagine what the 5-series would have looked like, two generations down the non-Bangle line.
Quite a lot like the CS, I’d guess.
