Performance-oriented car brands often build a "halo car" to show off features and design characteristics that will be present in production cars in the next few years. This business strategy, largely pioneered by Lamborghini, often involves the creation of some insane hypercar to demonstrate a company's plans. Although it has an entire catalogue of AMG performance cars to use for its halo vehicle including a brand-new hypercar, Mercedes-Benz is opting for a different strategy. Mercedes will instead use the 2018 Sprinter van for its design benchmark and showcase the future of transportation vehicles.
Mercedes-Benz USA released a new sketch of the upcoming 2018 Sprinter van on Monday, which it says will offer a glimpse of how the rest of MB's lineup will look in the near future. The stretched Oklahoma-shaped headlights, pronounced grille, sporty wheels, and streamlined body fully embrace the new trend of angry, sporty front ends. Basically, MB has added more curves to the Sprinter's body and more lines to the face.
Mercedes also mentioned that the new Sprinter will be equipped with the company's complex DrivePilot assist system, more connectivity options, and an arsenal of variants. This makes the new Sprinter incredibly versatile, as companies can now easily choose a specific version of the van to suit their individual needs.
The 2018 Sprinter is the first Benz transport vehicle to follow Mercedes' adVANce business initiative, a push to modernize vans with cutting-edge technology and make Mercedes more than just a car company.
Mercedes says it will have more information about the Sprinter and the new design philosophy before the van launches in Europe in the first half of 2018.