Matthias Malmedie tests the crazy Mercedes-Benz E-Class All-Terrain 4×4² prototype and finds out how it was developed. Subscribe to the channel so you get notified for new exciting videos here:
You definitely have never seen this car here in this form before, i can guarantee you that. yes, on the inside it looks like a completely ordinary e-class. and it is a completely ordinary e-class more or less, but then again in some way it’s not an ordinary e-class at all. that means you can do things with this e-class that you most definitely cannot do with because
Believe it or not, we have 42 centimetres ground clearance. and we have this because the colleagues in daimler ag mounted this 4×4² is of course a completely unique vehicle, it’s a prototype, and try it out.” and we are now going to meet this daft guy – a crazy man so, jürgen, come on over and explain to me how you came up with this idea. yes, well, we were inspired
By what goes on here at daimler and the kind of cars here. there’s the g 500 4×4² and we took our cue from that. looking at the car, it’s from another planet altogether, a mixture of a g-class and an e-class. how much wider is it? so we added on ten centimetres to the wheel arches on either side, in other words we are now at 2.10 metres. wider than the exterior
Mirrors in any case, so you have to be a bit careful on the construction site. we’re at 42 centimetres, the series production car has around 160 millimetres. exactly, you could say we raised it up 20 centimetres. now i of course have a question since we are here in this off-road terrain. jürgen, do you think i will be able to break it today? i don’t think so, for
This off-road terrain here… i’m allowed to, right? you know what happens when i start to mess around with the car? but it pushes on well, what kind of engine does it have? did you say a 400 series? the 400 series, actually a series production engine. will the underbody of the car not come into contact with the slope? – i don’t think so. i would have thought that
By now the back bumper would have come into contact with the slope, but nothing has come into contact with the slope. i’d like to drive up here as well, what do you think? no that’s not possible.that’s a g-class or actually a unimog ramp. the ice isn’t that thick that we can drive over it, rather we are driving through the ice. driving at an angle is the worst
Thing in off-road driving for me. your comfort zone is probably a bit atilt, but not that tilted. how did it come about that your boss allowed you to do this? haven’t you usually just designed a different car and then you have this idea in your head well, i’m a cad developer, which means my sketch really is a cad construction. i simply took parts from the big shelf
That we have, and more or less put them up against the car in the end, the wheel arches were missing and i just constructed wheel arches and then i had an overall image. what did your boss say? what was the first thing your boss said? yes, then we took a look. so what’s behind this? what can we do? we looked to see if we could mount components on the modern axles of
The e-class, components that are otherwise familiar from a rigid axle. ok, and that all fit together, or what do you mean? but i just went off looking around the daimler group and in every unit i well yeah ok, for a g-class this would be no problem, but for an e-class? you have to take a look at this, this is the roughest of terrain here. and it really is a g 500 4×4²
Where the drive is concerned. so where the drive is concerned, i.e. the engine, the transmission, it actually has what an e-class all-wheel drive has. but where the all-wheel drive is concerned, it’s a g 500 4×4²? you said a hub reduction gear. what exactly is a hub reduction gear? so ultimately we are talking about a hub reduction gear. that’s a transmission unit
On the wheel out to the wheel. and this difference in height is in principle the gain in ground clearance. this is where the drive shaft comes out and that’s where i mount my wheel. now i take your wheel and mount it a lot lower down and then there is a new shaft here and that creates a whole lot of ground clearance here. where can we take a look at this hub reduction
Gear? i want to take a look under it. and then at some stage the powertrain will work its way up there. show me how it works. you already explained it to us, but now we want to see it. we have the driveshaft up there, which is basically higher up than the middle of the wheel. the middle of the wheel would now be approximately at this height. we basically then have an
Intermediate transmission that creates the height adjustment so we gained height there and can also mount a larger wheel. we have to take a step back for a second, jürgen, and take a look at it you have never seen an e-class like this before, my friends. it’s surprising for us each time, too. when i went driving with a colleague, how long did it take from your initial idea
Until the vehicle was ready? well, in the end we probably spent around six months actually developing it. and the first time we drove it, we even had a cog-driveshaft configuration that was welded by hand, that’s impossible! if you contact a cog supplier right now and tell them you need new parts in a week but there was always someone, there was always some petrol head
Who we can quickly just go down a slope here. it’s the one we already saw from below. there’s small potholes coming up, just stay on the brake and drive through them slowly. exactly, there are of course also these holes which can lead to some contact. well, that’s … – … certainly a new perspective on the e-class. where does your passion for actually making
Off-road vehicles come from? well, i can’t really say for sure. it sort of grew on me. and at some stage i started to get interested in off-road vehicles. i think the glc is really great. and what drives you? it is simply the technical feasibility? to think at the beginning that it’s impossible – that’s exactly the right impulse. that’s what makes it so
Exciting. had it worked straight away, then it would have been boring. i think it’s great that something like this is possible. and that you actually go and do it is brilliant. it’s great to see what kind of a team can be put together. of course it’s not always easy, but there was always someone who helped out along the way. before i park up, i am of course going
To go for another little spin, right? jürgen said the hill is impossible to drive up, but i say it’s possible. we already had really steep hills, we already had extreme inclines, the concrete hill that was actually made for the unimog. the sky is the only thing i can see and i don’t know exactly where i’m going. okay, it’s tipping over, now i have to drive
Slowly. maybe brake a bit on the left. okay, this is the steepest part and all i can see is water. i guarantee you i will rip off the front apron now. oh man, if the front apron comes off, jürgen is going to have my head.
Transcribed from video
Mercedes-Benz E-Class All-Terrain 4×4² prototype and Matthias Malmedie By Mercedes-Benz
