A new Mercedes-Benz flagship doesn't come along very often, so the W223 is still the talk of the town. In his second YouTube video about this car, the artist known as TheSketchMonkey did a redesign which he thinks is more fitting of a "proper flagship."
What does that mean? Well, according to him, the S-Class should be all-business because it sits at the top of the model range. You can leave the flowing curves and sporty lines to the smaller C- and E-Class. At first, this seems like a ridiculous statement. Why should the top sedan be different from all the others? But you don't see the G-Class trying to get with the crossover crowd.
The word 'stately' gets used a lot when trying to describe what the S-Class should be. And while it makes you think of Rolls-Royce, the actual design language being adapted to the W223 seems to belong to the W140, an iconic version of the Sonderklasse from the 1990s.
Its boxiness and simplicity give this 2021 S-Class rendering a flatter roof, simple rear pillars, and rectangular taillights. We feel that the retro look isn't actually helping. If anything, it looks even worse after the redesign. But we did agree that the rear of the sedan should be wider to give it presence.
This is more of a look that car designers would like instead of real customers. People who spend big money like to feel like they're on the cutting edge, which is probably why the 2021 S-Class has more gadgets than Batman's belt. Models that echo the past are cool at first, but they get boring after a while.
At the end of the day, we're talking about the biggest luxury automaker in the world, and improving on Mercedes' designs is usually quite difficult. Only time will tell if a tapered rear and sloped roof really held the W223 S-Class back in terms of popularity.
Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida. Full profile
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