The Concept Car: Mercedes Benz Concept IAA - Men's Folio
Motoring

The Concept Car: Mercedes Benz Concept IAA

  • By Men's Folio

Mercedes Benz’s new Concept IAA (Intelligent Aerodynamic Automobile) is the closest you’ll get to owning an Autobot. The 504cm long hybrid sedan is a beauty to behold, but push it to 80km/h and it’ll automatically extend its body to a total length of 543cm, which enables it to slip through the air with a drag coefficient of just 0.19Cd (the Mercedes CLA has a Cd of 0.22, for comparison). This efficiency is further aided by movable elements in the grille and front bumper that allow air to flow around the arches and under the car. The transformation can also be achieved manually through the push of a button. All of this was planned using 300 different variations of the IAA, taking over one million CPU hours to render – just for a concept, but one that we can expect to see in 2017.

Text by Charmain Leong

This article was originally published in Men’s Folio Magazine April 2016