As Mercedes-Benz retools for an era, perhaps, of less-conspicuous consumption, the management board has installed a design chief, who at 40, is the youngest in the automaker’s history. Perched high in the tight-security Renzo Piano-conceived Design Center, Gorden Wagener oversees 400 designers in Germany, plus another 100 or so in Mercedes-Benz studios worldwide.

Though nominally “Head of Design”, Wagener’s design days are behind him, in Southern California, where he ran the studio. “California is a great place, not only to live, but also for design, because it’s free in mind and free in thinking,” says the native German, wistfully. Inside the Design Center, he’s abolished Teutonic corporate hierarchy in favor of “a flat approach – more like Google and Apple,” he notes. Executives and department managers alike are accessible in glass offices clustered in the building’s front section.

Once considered the quintessential German brand, Mercedes has also excised the word “German” from its sales vocabulary for now. Apparently obsolete as a reference conveying precision engineering and high quality, “German” has been replaced by “European,” as in “European luxury.”

Finger C's headlamp/taillamp design area. Piano devised an open plan to promote communication and creativity.

Driving past premium faux-Tuscan villages dotting the Orange County landscape, Wagener gained an ideal perspective on how Americans perceived European luxury. The three cars he designed there — the bustle-backed, flared-fender S-class grosser limousine; the $500,000 gull-wing Mercedes-McLaren, a supercar that might have jumped from the pages of Marvel; and the swooping, plus-sized, R-class luxury minivan – suggest Americans want Euro-luxury with big insignias, sass, and a dollop or three of ostentation.

But those cars, and other Mercedes’ sold in the important US market, paint a false picture of the company, as much of the product line is unavailable in the US. That’s changing. “The small cars would bring us younger customers, and we should focus on them. We’re working on it,” notes Wagener.

Indeed the smaller cars comprising Mercedes’s A and B-class convey a more nimble, efficient brand competing in a fierce global market where utility, economy and durability trump prestige. B,C, and E-class models are used widely in Europe as taxis — rear passengers think twice before tearing open a bag of chips in one as the cars command respect, regardless of size or provenance. Almost all the models are available with clean diesel engines; Mercedes is late to the hybrid party.

That the prestige is intact after a long bout of spotty quality, extraordinary competition from Japan, and the democratization of high-technology (almost nothing is proprietary anymore), is a tribute to the brand’s stewards. They’ve chosen Wagener, with his youth, talent and sex appeal, not to design, but to bolster Mercedes through design.

“Different teams sketch new model proposals; ultimately we select a few directions on which to follow through,” Wagener explains. “At the end there’s one car left. The role of chief designer is to make that car a Mercedes. A sketch can hold the future direction of the company.” Piano’s system of galleries where all designers can peer down on the model makers who are literally molding the brand, further enhances creativity.

The tools have remained constant for half a century or more: the grille, the star insignia on the trunk lid, the gently leaning “c” pillar (if it’s a sedan), real wood and leather when called for – nothing fake. It’s all in the application, and if one scrapes the canvas, one finds accents and lines from the previous model.

According to Wagener, Mercedes’ design code is a “long life” approach, not the “wow” factor prevalent in the auto industry. “We don’t want the flashy effect, where you buy a car for a year then throw it away; we want our designs to work for 25 years.” Put the newest E-class sedan next to the outgoing model, and one is hard-pressed to tell which came first – they simply appear different. The 80’s E-class, the last vestige of the venerable Mercedes Bauhaus-inspired design aesthetic, still looks modern. 60’s through 90’s SL’s famously retain their caché.

Wagener’s mission has urgency now. “Our goal is to be leading in green technologies. Americans want fuel-efficient cars but they don’t necessarily want a small car. It’s a higher challenge to make the S-class environmentally-friendly than with a small car.”  Hierarchy is retained with the model-line: the S-class, at the top, remains the brand’s technology showcase. Perhaps it’s time to abolish this hierarchy too, and have technology trickle up; to think smaller when thinking luxury, as Europeans have done for a long time. Meanwhile, Renzo Piano has provided Mercedes-Benz an industrial sanctuary ideal for a design revolution.  MG

published July 2009, photography by Andrew Twort