Mercedes SL-Class Covered in Latex Is German Kinkiness at Its Finest

Usually, there’s no way to connect the world of fashion with that of car design without becoming… French. After all, nobody would buy car seats made by Versace or a windshield with cleavage. Art cars sometimes bridge that gap, but they are forgeable, like chalk painting washed by the rain.

Could you forget a Mercedes sealed away under tens of square feet of blue latex? I know I can’t, especially since they didn’t leave the German mistress clad in the same material out.

I’m not qualified to judge whether this qualifies as art or not. But I have seen worse at art galleries. The car under all that rubber is the newborn SL-Class facelift model with a big chin and a gaping grille.

Russian supermodel Natasha Poly looks like she’s been eating nothing but salads and is just the type of person you want to see next to a €200,000 luxury convertible. The car is German, the model is Russian, the designer is Japanese, but the fact that the photographer proves kinkiness is international. Maybe latex-covered cars will become a thing, and you’ll see millionaires rubbing oil on their cars to make them shiny.

Latex is a very interesting material because it creates bright highlights of pure white and looks wet. Mercedes chose it to show off the sinuous lines and sensual curves of the roadster.

“For me, my photography is only about light and color, so, in this case, I wanted to light the car to emphasize its form and three-dimensional qualities, but having the latex as a second skin so you could see the lines of the car in a new way,” American photographer Jeff Bark explains. “What’s so appealing about working with Mercedes-Benz is that each campaign is very different; they always try to make something you haven’t seen before. An icon has to be an obsession for more than just the person who is in love with it; one of the things about Mercedes-Benz is that it’s universally loved.”