Independent designer creates a sleek Mercedes concept. The exterior design draws inspiration from the ’90s era. The premium cabin features physical dials and controls. Mercedes design is having a moment, and not a good one. The electric era has not flattered the brand’s studio, where pebble-shaped sedans and wall-to-wall screens have landed flat with buyers. Independent designer Lukas Wochinger has put forward an alternative. His digital concept marries quieter exterior surfacing with a cabin built around analogue dials and proper switchgear. Wochinger is not a hobbyist with a render engine. He was Lead Exterior Designer at NIO from 2021 to 2025, which means he has spent the past few years thinking seriously about what a premium EV ought to look like. More: Mercedes Just Lost The Man Who Shaped Its Entire Design Language For Nearly 30 Years The Munich-based designer published a set of high-fidelity renders on LinkedIn. The brief he set himself was a “more constructed and clearly defined form language” with the 1990s as touchstone. Think R129 SL, W124 E-Class, C215 CL-Class coupe. Cars that did not feel the need to shout. The digital concept is perfectly timed for the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in Italy, combining clean surfacing with simple lines and balanced proportions. The biggest difference with the EQS is the elongated hood that gives it a proper Mercedes stance. The face wears a new closed-off grille, which is an enormous improvement over the fussy treatment of the facelifted EQS or the illuminated panels on the electric C-Class and GLC. Boxy LED headlights, deep bumper intakes, and a pronounced splitter complete the front. More: Mercedes’ Electric C-Class Is The BMW i3’s Neue Nightmare Star-shaped alloys dominate the side view, along with flush door handles and sculpted rear shoulders that echo the AMG GT Four-Door. The arched greenhouse is pure CL coupe, and the two-tone paint stretches the visual length. At the back, a subtle ducktail spoiler sits above horizontal LED taillights set into a black panel, with a clean diffuser-integrated bumper below. Analogue Dials And Physical Controls The exterior is sharp, but the cabin is where this concept earns its keep. The much-maligned Hyperscreen is gone, replaced by a more sensible infotainment display along the lines of previous-generation Mercedes models, paired with analogue dials behind the wheel. They look like high-end watches, with the speedometer finished in white. More: 144,000 Mercedes Owners Just Remembered Why Analog Gauges Were So Great Another highlight are the physical controls on the center console, door cards, and steering wheel, providing the much-needed haptic feedback. The cabin features high-end materials like mint-green leather, dark wood, and metal, while the posh seats have inserts with the Mercedes emblem. The powertrain is left ambiguous. No cooling intakes and no tailpipes suggest an EV, but Wochinger imagines a hybrid, which is presumably why there is an rpm dial in the binnacle. Either way, this independent concept makes a quiet but convincing case that Mercedes doesn’t need more pixels to reclaim its premium throne. It just needs a little more soul, and a few honest references to its past. Lukas Wochinger
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