2014 Mercedes-Benz C Class images leaked

No it’s not a bigger Mercedes-Benz CLA sedan, it’s the new W205 C Class. The image above features an AMG bodykit and when the new C Class isn’t wearing its sporty clothes it looks a bit like a baby S Class.

Mercedes revealed interior pics of the new C Class last week (see below) and with these leaked images we expect official photos will follow soon.

[Source: Dariomotor]

 

The new C-Class: Upgrade inside – more Class

22 October 2013. Mercedes-Benz is writing the next chapter of success with the all-new C‑Class. An interior with an exciting, high-class ambience, touchpad and head-up display, the lightest bodyshell in the segment, extensive safety features, a new agile and comfortable suspension as well as GPS-sensitive air conditioning underscore the inner values of the new C-Class. Overall, its innovations and refined equipment and appointments feel like an upgrade to a higher class.
The interior design of the future C-Class comes across as clear, sensual and with a host of new unusual styling features. At the same time it exudes sportiness – but with sensual shapes and high-grade materials, thus epitomising contemporary luxury. It also meets the kind of high design expectations that now tend to be synonymous with technology such as high-end smartphones.

The most prominent new styling features include a completely reinterpreted centre console, whose progressive lines create an inviting, open sense of space, as well as a free-standing central display. High-grade materials, as well as an enthralling interplay of organic surfaces and precisely sculpted lines underscore these new aesthetics and its stylish character.

The innovative touchpad developed by Mercedes-Benz in the new C-Class also marks an important evolutionary step. As on a smartphone, all the head-unit functions can easily be operated using finger gestures. The user also receives clear, haptic feedback when operating the touchpad control surface.

Additional to the information in the central display a head-up display is also new in the C-Class. Like in a jet fighter it projects important information as a virtual image directly into the driver’s field of vision. It appears to float over the bonnet, around two metres in front of the driver, thus ensuring the driver is distracted less from the road ahead. The system provides information on speed, speed limits, navigation instructions and messages from DISTRONIC PLUS. It features a high-resolution virtual image which the driver can adjust to their preferred settings.

Intelligent lightweight construction

Less weight, excellent rigidity for superb driving handling coupled with optimum noise and vibration characteristics as well as high crash safety – those are the outstanding characteristics of the new C-Class with its aluminium hybrid body, which makes it the “lightweight construction trailblazer” in its segment. Thanks to intelligent and innovative lightweight construction, the body and bodyshell are around 70 kg lighter than conventional production using steel. The entire vehicle is around 100 kilograms lighter compared with the predecessor. This weight saving significantly reduces fuel consumption to set the new standard in this segment.

Mercedes-Benz has pulled off this technological leap primarily through an entirely new design and the extensive usage of aluminium, hot-formed steel parts and ultra-high-strength steels – an unusual combination in volume-production vehicles. The engineers have redesigned every detail and not simply replaced steel with aluminium, but implemented a concept that is ready for series production by using the right material in the right place – the essence of intelligent lightweight construction.

At the same time the body and bodyshell have been designed to deliver exemplary crash safety. The Saloon not only meets all current national safety ratings, but also the more stringent Mercedes-Benz requirements according to “Best Real Life Safety”. A high-strength safety passenger compartment made predominantly out of high- and ultra-high-strength sheet steel and specifically developed deformation zones with optimised force dissipation paths in the front end and rear made out of an aluminium hybrid structure and an exterior skin that is made virtually entirely of aluminium allow these requirements to be met.
Suspension – agile and yet comfortable

The new C-Class comes across as light-footed and agile, delivering a high level of driving pleasure on winding roads coupled with superb ride comfort in its segment. A newly designed 4-link front axle, which provides excellent axle kinematics, makes a major contribution in this respect.
The new C-Class Saloon is fitted as standard with a steel suspension. Alternatively, it is the first vehicle in this segment that can be fitted with an air suspension (AIRMATIC) on the front and rear axles. Thanks to electronically controlled, continuous variable damping, it offers outstanding road roar and tyre vibration characteristics and the choice of different damper characteristics.

New safety features and assistance systems

The sensor for the new front passenger airbag in the future C-Class can detect every child seat installed. Then the airbag is automatically deactivated. After removing the child seat the airbag is activated again.

The new C-Class also incorporates many of the new assistance systems or existing assistance systems with a range of enhanced functions, which celebrated their world premiere in the S-Class only a few months ago: Mercedes-Benz Intelligent Drive.

Feel-good atmosphere

The new C-Class is the only vehicle in the segment to offer an air condition system including automatic air recirculation with tunnel detection using satellite navigation. The AIR‑BALANCE package with active fragrancing and ionisation, which celebrated its world premiere in the S-Class, also adds to the feel-good atmosphere.

Interior design: Increase in perceived value comes from inside

The cockpit and passenger compartment come across as clear, sensual and with a host of new unusual styling details. Clarity stands for visible high-tech attributes and straight-line sportiness – purism in the best sense of the word. Sensuality stands for design ideas with exciting flowing shapes and high-grade materials – a reinterpretation of contemporary luxury.

The Mercedes-Benz designers have styled the interior on a level which one rarely finds even in higher vehicle categories. This applies to the painstaking choice of select, high-class materials and their pleasant touch and feel as well as the precision of the finely crafted details. But it also applies to a new design idiom which combines elegance and harmony congenially with sensuality and dynamic sportiness, thus adding to the interior’s extraordinarily high perceived value.

Courage to embrace the new

The designers pick up key traits of the exterior inside the vehicle in order to achieve this overall aim. This applies above all to the scintillating play of contrasts between the clearly sculpted lines and surfaces which grow organically out of these contrasts. The hallmark contemporary Mercedes-Benz design idiom of the dropping line sloping to the rear is, for instance, picked up in the doors. At the same time, the style-defining new interior of the new C‑Class meets the most discerning design expectations which are today characterised by devices such as high-end smartphones and tablets. Thus the driver and passengers in the new C-Class enjoy a generous sense of space and understated luxury, whose clear-cut style fits in with contemporary tastes. The upshot is a new feel-good character in this category – take a seat in the new C-Class and the sensation is something akin to an upgrade from economy to business class on an airline.

Mercedes-Benz not only raises the character and perceived value of the interior to a new level for this category with the new C-Class. At the same time, the premium brand also consciously demonstrates through the interior styling the courage to embrace the new in many respects, to adopt a forward-looking vision, thus making an almost radical break with the previous norms in the hitherto somewhat rational class.

The most striking new styling feature is an entirely reinterpreted centre console: on vehicles with automatic transmissions, its large, one-piece dashboard console sweeps elegantly from the centre air outlets to the equally new touchpad in the handrest over the controller on the central tunnel. These continuous clear-cut lines with their perfect harmony create an open sense of space, conveying an unrivalled sense of simple and puristic modernity. The large unique component is available in numerous material finishes – such as fine wood, precisely bordered by a chrome surround, or in an exclusive piano-lacquer look – and underscores the interior’s high-quality ambience and its avant-garde yet stylish character in a pleasant, clear way.

The progressively styled centre console provides an extremely fluid transition to the dashboard and beyond into the doors. The sportily designed, horizontal dashboard separates a wing-like trim element in the upper and lower section. This visual structure enables various combinations of materials and colours to be selected to create an individual feel-good atmosphere.

High quality all-round

A centrally positioned free-standing central display is the main eye-catching feature across the centre console – with a screen diagonal of 17.78 centimetres (7 inches) or 21.33 centimetres (8.4 inches) if COMAND Online is specified. The larger version is made of bonded glass and galvanised with a frame in silver shadow. Thanks to its ergonomic positioning, the eye easily adapts to the central display.

Five air outlets with a central adjusting knob and horizontal louvre insert give the dashboard a sporty touch. The five ventilation outlets in silver shadow with their metallic cool-touch effect contrast with the warm look of the other materials – such as the wood in the centre console or the leather on the dashboard.

Three-dimensional, fine, contemporary trim elements emphasise the high perceived value – as does the hand-finished, intricate stitching, such as on the upper section of the dashboard, in the centre panel and on the beltlines. The door panelling has also been redesigned and is characterised by high-grade materials as well as striking surface grain and eye-catching curves.

While various steering wheel variants are specified depending on the selected equipment line, each one comes in a 3-spoke leather steering wheel design with twelve buttons. The differences relate to the colours and material. This provides the interior with wide-ranging differentiation options, running the whole gamut from “tangible luxurious sensuality” to “progressive sportiness”.

The discerning aspirations are also continued systematically in the controls. Surfaces with uniform styling and a minimal number of switches provide a serene, reassured sense of space. Some of the switches such as for the power windows or the rotary switch for the lights were taken from the S-Class, thus setting the highest standards. Black high-sheen, genuine metal and galvanised surfaces, as well as effect paintwork matching the interior appointments colours form a key element of the high-quality feel.

Touchpad: Command with finger-tip control

The touchpad in the new C-Class developed by Mercedes-Benz marks an evolutionary step. As on a smartphone, all the head-unit functions can be operated using finger gestures.

The 65 x 45 millimetre control surface of the new touchpad made out of scratch-resistant material is built into the handrest on the central control panel and bordered by a high-quality metal support – a design feature with high-tech aspirations which exudes luxury at the same time.

While other solutions with a touch-sensitive surface only support selected operating steps, the driver and front passenger can use the touchpad in the new C-Class to control all the functions in the central infotainment control panel using the kind of single and multitouch gestures familiar from smartphones and tablet PCs. Slow and fast gestures are possible. The touchpad, which will be premiered in the future C-Class, also allows letters, numbers and special characters to be entered using the handwriting recognition function, in the respective language supported by the head unit. The user receives clear haptic feedback when operating the touchpad control surface. Characters entered using the handwriting function can also be read aloud by the system, thus supporting blind operation. The acoustic output also ensures that the driver does not need to take their eyes off the road, keeping distraction to an absolute minimum.

The user can input commands reliably with their hand sitting firmly on the ergonomic handrest without any need for free-floating fingers. A new handrest detection feature also increases operating safety and helps prevent incorrect inputs. As part of this process, the system analyses a sensor signal in three dimensions, thus detecting whether the hand is simply being placed on the handrest or is actually inputting data. The icons on the control surface are illuminated in the dark to help the user locate the various functions.

Three touch-sensitive buttons are arranged behind the touchpad which can be used to operate key functions quickly and directly (back function, switch to favourites menu, audio quick menu).

The touchpad in the C-Class thus offers an additional, fully fledged and innovative input option to complement the existing Controller and LINGUATRONIC voice control system. The user can choose at any time which input method they prefer.