Last year, Mercedes-Maybach collaborated with late designer Virgil Abloh on Project Maybach. Now, another Mercedes sub-brand, Mercedes-AMG, is taking its turn at a celebrity design collaboration. The brand has posted a pair of teaser images for an upcoming concept vehicle designed in collaboration with the musician will.i.am, which will debut on May 5, 2022.
We don’t know much yet about what this concept car will be. Mercedes teased it with the hashtags #innovationforpurporse and #will4amg. The musician’s website labels it the WILL.I.AMG. Judging from the front end and silhouette photos, the will.i.amg concept looks a lot like an E-Class Coupe affixed with the front fascia from an AMG G63 SUV.
We’ll admit, our first reactions to seeing the will.i.amg concept on a Monday morning involved some popular acronyms of our own: OMG, WTF, GTFO. But upon further reflection, will.i.am and Mercedes-AMG could be on the very cutting edge of luxury SUV design.
After all, luxury SUVs have become sportier. Mercedes-AMG builds the weird and weirdly impressive AMG GLE 63 S Coupe. At the same time, sports cars are becoming more off-road capable. Lamborghini built an off-roading concept, the Huracan Sterrato, which may be heading to production due to its popularity. Porsche has been spotted testing what looks like an off-road 911 as well.
The will.i.am concept — or whatever it’s eventually called — could be the nexus point where the two trends meet and form the ultimate luxury car/SUV. Or, it could just be an E-class coupe crudely equipped with a G-Wagen front end and some futuristic but forgettable will.i.am-esque design features. (Remember his awful previous attempt at design? Be glad you don’t.)
