By Greg Kable, AutoWeek
Mercedes-Benz will make waves at this year’s Los Angeles auto show. But it won’t all be due to 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 auto show and the F700 Style concept car wheeled out at this year’s Geneva auto show.
Don’t expect the Biome to be featured on the Mercedes-Benz stand in Los Angeles, though. Word is 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 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 (454 kg). 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 lbs (394 kg).
The 158.3 inches long and 98.4 inches wide concept also boasts a diamond-shaped seating arrangement that sites the driver in the middle up front, two passengers slightly further back on either side and third passenger in the back, facing the rear.
Lee denies the styling of the Biome is related to any upcoming Mercedes-Benz model, describing it as “pure fantasy.” But with rumors already circulating about the prospect of an upcoming mid-engined model from Mercedes-Benz, its unveiling is likely to increase speculation of a possible supercar out of Stuttgart.
