A Four-In-One Vario Research Car: A Unique Product For Mercedes-Benz

You cannot use the same car for all purposes, but at the same time you cannot buy every type of car for every purpose. This was a problem that was long ago considered by the Mercedes-Benz. And that led to development of a novel concept known as Vario Research Car. The concept was developed almost two decades ago and was showcased for the first time at the 1995 Geneva Motor Show. According to its makers, all you needed to do was to drive this car to your nearest car rental and your automobile care takers would convert in the kind the kind of vehicle you require in a few minutes.

This kind of specialty was bestowed to this vehicle by the variability that its body structure carried along with it. The car could become anything as per your needs. Like an Aladdin’s Ginny it would turn into various vehicles like a convertible for fun outings, a wagon for weekend journeys that could accommodate ample of luggage, a sedan for maintaining your professional profile, and a pickup to help you shift from one place to another. So whenever you drive one VRC, actually   there would be four cars running at the same time.

Mercedes-Benz car research team accomplished this task by featuring a single piece superstructure on a compact two door car. This superstructure consisted rear section, roof, and side walls. They designed it in such a way that transformation from one to other form would hardly take more than 15 minutes. All this research was done with an aim to save valuable time of consumers, who could use the same time in doing something worthwhile. Keeping a complete crew of different kinds of vehicles seems impossible for any upper middle class person too, but yes affording one car that could turn into four can be a considerable option.  This is the vision that the Mercedes-Benz Vario Car Research team had while working over this concept.

Moving over to the anatomy details of the car, the internal machinery of the car has been simplified so that transformation from one form to another wouldn’t take much time. To make it easier the designing engineers gave it a structure under which the service technicians would have to just lower one superstructure into the chassis in order to raise another one. It would be placed in final position with electric motors and the strong solenoids would place it in right place through eight joints. The rear has been provided with a central connector along with automatic identification that would convert the rear connections in the way the superstructure is being transformed. 
These superstructures have been made of Carbon-Fiber Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) that is much known for its strength and light weight. Each superstructure associated with the car does not weight more than 30-50kgs. And despite low weight, these structures are highly stable and crash resistant.

The interiors too have been studded with ultra-modern technologies like color display screen that provides driver with all required information, Active Body Control that provides better stability and handling capacity. A safety display has also been bestowed to this car that would show a green circle till the driver drives in safety limits, yellow ellipse or a red triangle if the driver drives ahead of the safety limits. A navigation system has also been provided to this car, also a system would be informing the driver about the tyre pressures, engine oil level, windshield washer fluid level, and coolant level so that the driver would know which one needs to be attended.