Motoring corner: “The Mercedes-Benz F125 Concept”

As we continue with the review of some of the sleekest vehicles that one should own before you depart from this earth; we are tempted to look at yet another very tantalizing car, “The Mercedes-Benz F125 concept” being unveiled at the Frankfurt Auto Show 2011. This is yet another of those vehicles that gives auto salons a reason for being. The vehicle says more than words can say, in other words, it speaks volumes for its self! As its designers and lovers would say, “It is a dream car”. It makes dreaming of a gilded future for automobiles, and those who drive them a foreseeable reality and is what these shows are all geared at bringing out. If you are a car love like me, do not miss this opportunity to explore the ingenuity of those who make it their business to make your wheels conform to your dreams! According to Mercedes, the people behind the brains that make F125 what it is, they suggest what an automobile might look like in the year 2025, and what might propel it. Projecting that far ahead in future in this industry can be called gambling by some but not the Mercedes team! When one steps back a decade or two ago, nobody would have envisaged the current trends of the current world of iDevices (iPod, iPad, iPhone), the E-Systems, C.G.I. movies, Mobile Phones, Mars Rovers and an electric Nissan! Who would have predicted that, an African would be seating the USA White House as President of the United States? This shows us the importance of “forward” looking minds! Most probably, when 2025 actually get here, we’ll look back on the F125 as an eccentric flight of fancy, little more than a quaint notion — like Ford’s 1958 design study for the Nucleon, a car that would have been powered by an on-board nuclear reactor. But Mercedes-Benz is willing, perhaps even eager, to go out on a limb here, claiming vehicles should look even more sleek, sensuous and desirable, like the F125, no matter what government safety, emissions and fuel economy regulations may be thrown their way. Such vehicles, Mercedes posits out, will be capable of ranging 1,000 kilometres or more between fill-ups of hydrogen, which would be pumped through fuel cells to produce the energy that would turn electric drive motors at each wheel. This would be supplemented by a plug-in hybrid system, with lightweight lithium-sulphur batteries capable of giving the F125 50 km of purely electric range. Semi-autonomous telematics systems would help take over some of the driving duties from humans: changing lanes, passing other cars and crawling unassisted through heavy traffic. The F125 would be constructed of materials so light — carbon fibre, aluminium, advanced plastics and rare-earth elements — that it might seem able to gracefully spread its wings and fly away. We can say that, the F125 is more less a car of the future than the present! As Mercedes make this wonder car, even the other automobile makers are not asleep, they are dreaming on a similar frequency! motoringcorner@live.co.uk

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Motoring corner: “The Mercedes-Benz F125 Concept”