Just like they did on day 1 of the Brand Workshop, Mercedes-Benz picked us up with a half-dozen Viano shuttle buses from our Le Meridien Hotel in downtown Stuttgart and took us straight to the Design Center in Sindelfingen. Driving by the manufacturing plants, we spotted around 40 or so brand new Mercedes-Benz SLS’ parked and awaiting delivery to their customers (pic available here).

Upon arrival to the Design Center building, we had to surrender all our cameras and phones. A professional photographer took the below pictures, which of course were later reviewed by the Mercedes directors to see that no vital information were to be leaked.

After a small lunch break, we were whiskered into the media room (which is the dark room in the pictures) for some short presentations about the design process as well as what Mercedes-Benz is working on when it comes to green technology and sustainability.

Everything was moving fast as they had a lot more to show us. Next was a visit to the interior design department, where everything is designed. When I say everything, then I mean it because Mercedes-Benz makes all of their interior parts.

Before we knew it, we returned to the auditorium, where now all the cars had their covers removed. As you can see in the pictures, the latest Mercedes-Benz models were showcased here, as well as some concept vehicles. The F700 was there, which had it debuted at the Frankfurt Auto Show in 2008, as well as the F800, which was first shown to the world a month ago in Geneva. Christoph Horn, who is the head of Global Communications for Mercedes-Benz Cars, and Steffen Kohl, head of the worldwide Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design Studios, took us on a tour of each vehicle that was in the hall and gave us an insight of on the manufacturing and design process of each vehicle.

A few hours later and overloaded with information, shuttle buses picked us up again and took us straight to the Malmsheim Airport, which is now being permenantly leased by Mercedes-Benz for all their driving tests that can’t be performed on normal roads (great spy shots location). After a three course meal (we ate a lot of food during the 3 day stay, as you probably noticed) we were given the chance to drive any of the 20 or more cars available for us. Not just drive it around the airfield, but actually go out into the city and Autobahn.

The only car that was not available for testing was the SLS AMG, which is why Matthew (SLS AMG Reporter) and I picked the next best thing – the Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG. Words or even pictures can’t describe the awesomeness of the car. Never in my life had I experienced so much fear and joy at the same time, especially at the beginning when Matthew took the wheel. He knew the area and was very familiar with the local roads, which made the test drive especially fun as he was maneuvering the vehicle with highway speeds on very narrow and two way back-roads. We were exceeding speeds of around 100mph on roads that had speed limit of 35mph. Now, can you image what kind of speeds we hit on the Autobahn. I won’t even mention the speeds Matthew was able to hit on the Autobahn, as I was partly busy trying not to puke. The one speed that does matter though was the one I was able to achieve – 160 mph or 260 km/h – pretty impressive when you consider that this is the fastest I have ever driven a car.

Like I said above, there are just no words to describe this experience that will do it justice. It was simply amazing, not just because I got to spend two days with the people I adore and with the company I love, but because I have met some great friends. I can’t thank Mercedes-Benz and all the people responsible for making this happen. Thank you Tobias, Kristina, Melanie, Lefti, Matthew, Thilo and everyone else at Mercedes-Benz for an awesome week.

Friends I met at the MB Brand Workshop:
Rob – Cardomain.com
David – The World’s Best Ever
Gerry – Lost at E Minor
Philipp – Mercedes-Benz Passion
Alex – Probefahrer
Shea – MNN.com

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