These Iconic Designs From Bruno Sacco Completely Transformed Mercedes-Benz

It’s impossible to talk about Mercedes-Benz design without mentioning Bruno Sacco. The man was in charge of the brand’s shape for decades, and knew that it was important for the brand’s cars to be stylistically simple and instantly recognizable as a Mercedes-Benz. He developed a system of “horizontal homogeneity” and “vertical affinity” for his design team to follow.

Horizontal homogeneity is the philosophy that the brands range of designs share common stylistic cues with a strong visual relationship between the smallest and largest.

Vertical affinity is the concept that cars should not be rendered stylistically obsolete by their successors. Basically Sacco wanted his designs to be timeless and capable of standing on their own in twenty to thirty years time. Which seems to have happened.

Say what you will about the ML, Mercedes-Benz sold an absolute shitload of these things. The original plan for the ML was to replace the Gelandewagen as Mercedes-Benz’ off-road machine, and the company was attempting to collaborate with Mitsubishi to platform share this new vehicle with its Montero/Pajero. Obviously both of those plans were shelved in favor of a from-scratch Mercedes-built mid-size body-on-frame SUV. It’s perhaps the least handsome and timeless of Sacco’s designs.

Launched for the 2001 model year, the R230-generation SL was the height of grand touring for Mercedes for a decade, replacing the successful and long-lived R129. It was designed by committee over eighteen months, as twelve quarter-scale models were digitized and melded together by computer to form the R230. This was the last design Sacco oversaw before retiring in 1999.

In the late 1990s, Mercedes was looking to make the S-class a more luxurious experience by increasing the interior volume while making the car slightly smaller. It’s still a handsome design today, looking fairly modern, despite its now-dated headlight shape and comparatively tiny wheels.

The first-generation CLK-Class was more or less the coupe version of the mid-sized C-class sedan, though it shared the aesthetics, including headlights and upright grille of the E-class to push it upmarket. The personal luxury coupe idea worked well for Mercedes, as some 350,000 examples of this model were sold worldwide between 1997 and 2002. Mercedes based its motorsport programs around the CLK with the prototype CLK GTR and CLK DTM models.

This era of Mercedes design just can’t be beat. There’s something about the upright chrome grille and split headlight shape that calls to me. While seriously dated looking in 2024, the E-class was miles ahead of its competition when it debuted in 1993. It looks particularly stately as a wagon.

One of Bruno Sacco’s greatest design regrets is found in the W140 S-class. Later in life Sacco would say that he regrets making the car’s greenhouse about four inches too tall. It’s difficult to imagine a full-sized luxury sedan without the copious amounts of headroom that the W140 offers, but it would look sick as fuck with a four-inch chop. Sacco was right.

Another iconic sedan generation came from Sacco’s pen in the form of the 124-series E-class. This is one of the most-Mercedes Mercedes designs of the era, and became known for their indestructibility. They look like the tanks they are with slab sides and angularity. Sedan perfection? It’s damn close.

Among Sacco’s first designs for Mercedes, the W123 remains an icon of simplistic beauty. Compare this to any other large sedan/wagon/coupe of the late 1970s and you’ll find it’s just plain handsome. There isn’t much to say about this that hasn’t already been said. It’s just good design.

Hell yeah, pillarless coupes! Built from 1979 to 1991, the second generation S-class was available as a sedan (in short and long wheelbase) and the SEC pillarless coupe. Of the three shapes, the coupe is obviously the best of the bunch. The goal of this project was to make a more aerodynamic shape for the S-class than the outgoing W116-chassis car, plus an improved ride, better handling, and more fuel-efficient driving. Sacco employed more wind-tunnel testing on this car than Mercedes-Benz had ever conducted before.

SLK, which stands for Sport Leicht Kurz (sport light short), was developed for the booming compact two-seat sports machine market of the 1990s. A market which apparently no longer exists. As something of a luxurious Miata, the R170 was based on a shortened C-class platform, but was imbued by the design team with SL and CLK design elements to push it upmarket. I still really like this car’s shape, even if I’m too tall for it.

My personal favorite of Sacco’s designs, the R129 SL is a simple and attractive shape. Sacco later in life praised the Cadillac XLR sports car as an example of good design and, looking at the side profile of the R129, you can see why. The fact that this design lasted nearly 25 years with minor changes is testament to the shape.

Sacco’s most successful design absolutely has to be the 190. From 1982 to 1993 this was among the most versatile and comprehensive European sedans on the market. Nearly two million examples were built in that time, including some of the greatest sport sedans in the history of humanity. Sacco considers this his favorite design, because of how important it was to the success of the company.

The C111 was Bruno Sacco’s first project at Mercedes-Benz, as he made a name for himself developing the series of safety-oriented gullwing-doored concepts. Mercedes put a variety of different powertrains in the C111 concepts, though these were most well known as testbeds for Mercedes’ eventually-shelved Wankel engine development, and taking speed records with diesel power.

Does any of Sacco’s design philosophy exist in today’s Mercedes-Benz? What, for example, would he think of the egg-on-wheels EQE SUV? It’s certainly more aggressive than anything Sacco had a hand in, while ditching simplicity and recognizability for modernity and giant wheels.