The Mercedes-Benz pavilion at the Frankfurt Motor Show is big. And busy. Amid the flurry of gasoline engines that combust like diesel engines and diesel engines that emit like gasoline engines &mdash and electric-motor-assisted hybrid versions of both &mdash it was easy to miss the quiet announcement that, for the 2009 model year, the company will rejigger its vehicle naming convention. Again. There was a time, too not long ago, when Mercedes-Benz model designations featured a number corresponding to the engine's displacement ('500' for the 5.0-liter V-8, for instance) and a letter or string of letters denoting the model series ('E' or 'S,' to name two). That changed in 1994, when Mercedes started putting the model-series letters first and a two- or three-digit number that roughly signified the displacement of the engine second. But things have gone a little awry. The company started to massage its own naming convention, presumably in an effort to make the model designations sound better, and for the cars' respective engines to seem bigger. The V-6 in the E320 Bluetec sedan, for instance, actually displaces 3.0 liters (2987 cc), and the high-performance V-8 in all AMG '63' models (S63, C63, etc) actually displaces 6.2 liters (6208 cc). For the record, Mercedes isn't the only manufacturer to liberally nudge its numeric model designations in one direction or the other; the in-line six-cylinder engines in the BMW 328i and the turbocharged 335i displace, naturally, 3.0-liters (2996 cc and 2979 cc, respectively).
Read more after the break.
Photos courtesy of Mercedes-Benz.
At any rate, Mercedes no longer believes, with the looming arrival of hybrid variants to its lineup, that the old naming convention tells each car's full story. In a hybrid powertrain, after all, the internal combustion engine is only part of the system. So, according to the press release, "The number used in the model name no longer will refer to the displacement of the internal combustion engine, but will indicate its actual performance potential. Addenda such as BLUETEC or HYBRID indicate the employed drive system technology." Confused yet? Well, the release explains further: "[Take] the S 400 HYBRID, for example. In this car, the performance range of the well-known V6 [gasoline] engine in combination with a hybrid module not only ensures effortlessly superior and especially environment-friendly driving, but simultaneously enables a higher performance potential. In this case the number '400' used in place of the previously accustomed displacement figure '350' signals the tremendous performance potential of [295 hp] and maximum torque of [277 pound-feet]."
So with a 3.5-liter V-6 making 295 hp and 277 lb-ft of torque, matched to a 20-hp electric motor, the 400 in S400 Hybrid makes perfect sense, right?
Top: The Mercedes-Benx S400 Bluetec Hybrid
Bottom: The Mercedes-Benz ML450 Hybrid
