Mercedes-Benz F800 Style concept

Mercedes-Benz will tell you that its F800 Style concept is a future-thinking showcase that can run with traditional power, cleaner, plug-in hybrid power or ultra-clean fuel-cell power, but don't be fooled into thinking it's a boring technology story.

It's fast, it's advanced and it's clean, but for all the advanced features Benz has stuffed into its Geneva Motor Show concept star, its first job is to soften people up for the way its all-new baby brother for the CLS sedan will look when it arrives in two years.

The swoopy new look, previewed on a sculpture during January's Detroit show, will be a harbinger of things to come for all of Benz's new sedan-based production cars. The F800 Style's body, complete with its sliding rear door, came from its advanced design studio in Sindelfingen, Germany, while its radical cabin came from its secretive interior design studio on Lake Como in Italy.

Underneath, the fuel-cell version will run on electric power for 600km without local emissions, while the petrol-electric hybrid is the speed demon, capable of hitting 100km/h in 4.8 seconds.

It will share their front-wheel drive layout, though the F800 Style concept also shows Benz's new modular rear-wheel drive architecture. The F800 will spawn a full range of cars to sit beneath the C-Class, including a hot-rod AMG version.

It's certainly the right size, with a total length of 4738mm, a width of 1938mm and a height of 1445mm. Just shy of next year's new C-Class coupe, the F800 Style is very close to the production CLC in every dimension, sources at Benz admit.

Not only that, but the look will also preview next year's CLS sedan, which basically drops a new body and interior on top of the E-Class architecture as design chief Gordon Wagener (pictured) stamps his brand on the future look of all Benz sedans.

And the F800 Style also debuts Benz's new A- and B-Class platform, dubbed MFA, which can also host a small SUV and rids Benz of the cost of the current, expensive twin-floor architecture. But this architecture is modular, and the rear-wheel drive parts of it will also sit beneath 2015's new C-Class.

This is, in fact, Benz giving the world a rare preview of its most important products years ahead of their time.

So the fuel cell version puts its cell at the front, its electric motor at the back to drive the rear wheels and four hydrogen tanks scattered around the body, including two in the transmission tunnel and two beneath the rear seat.

Using technology already trialed in the B-Class F-Cell, Benz claims the F800 Style will develop 100kW of power and 290Nm of torque, with the fuel cell generating its energy through chemically reacting oxygen with hydrogen, leaving water vapour as its only emission.

The hybrid F800 Style uses a plug-in system to charge its Lithium-Ion battery pack, which can run the car for up to 30km on pure electrical power alone, which Benz claims is enough for most people to commute daily without local emissions, even at speeds up to 120km/h.

Yet on weekends it can do up to 250km/h by leaning on its 220kW V6 petrol engine. The direct-injection engine joins up to the 80kW electrical system to deliver a total of 300kW of power. Its new Lithium-Ion battery, which sits beneath the rear seat, can store 10kW/h of electricity and can be recharged at home or in specialized charging stations.

Benz claims it emits 68 grams of CO2 per kilometre on the combined cycle and consumes just 2.9 litres per 100km.

For starters, the interior has a strange new controller for its multi-media system, which is the touch pad without any touching. Instead, the driver just draws things with his or her finger and the car uses a camera to pick up what they're trying to write, then transfers it into computer bytes and figures out what's being asked for.

It has other tricks that will turn up well before that, though, including showing a "range" circle on the navigation system's map to show the range left in the vehicle, which works equally well for petrol, diesel, fuel-cell or hybrid cars.

There's also a technology similar to that being worked on by most German carmakers to smooth out traffic problems.

The Distronic Plus traffic Jam Assistant basically lets you stop driving in heavy traffic as the car's array of cameras and sensors become your eyes while its computer becomes your feet and hands. Up to 40km/h, it will follow the road while the steering, braking and accelerating take care of themselves.

It can be over-ridden at any time by the driver, but is designed to take the stress out of the driving situations nobody likes.

There's also an extension of Benz's Pre-Safe crash-protection system, called Pre-Safe 360°. While the standard system monitors problems from the front and the side, the new system monitors the rear of the vehicle as well and 600 milliseconds before it detects a crash, it clamps down the brakes. Benz claims the key is that it prevents cars being pushed forward into pedestrians, though the brake can be immediately released if the driver hits the accelerator.

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