Past More Relevant
Someone once said: “Western car manufacturers have an important trump card compared to Chinese ones; they have a rich history to draw inspiration from.” They are happy to do so, and recently even more so. Think, for example, of the Renault 5 and the Volkswagen ID Buzz. The past is becoming more relevant on the drawing board for an increasing number of brands. Mercedes-Benz and DS, for example, dream of the return of two extraordinarily striking coupes from the last century.
Retro is timeless, and perhaps the Mercedes-AMG GT is one of the strongest examples of this. It belongs to a long lineage in which a touch of the ancestor was almost always recognizable in the models. By that ancestor, we of course mean the famous Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing. The ‘most retro’ descendant of that was possibly the SLS, which appeared in 2010. The gullwing doors certainly helped with that.
The Gullwing also served as a model for a much more recent creation: the Vision Iconic. At the end of 2025, Mercedes-Benz surprised friends and foes with it. Compared to the SLS, the Vision Iconic adds another strong dose of retro, with curves that seem directly borrowed from the 300 SL. Especially at the rear, the parallels are unmistakable. A direct production successor to the Vision Iconic is unlikely, but it is quite possible that certain influences from it will return in a next generation of the Mercedes-AMG GT, making it much more clearly an heir to the Gullwing than it is now.
Our illustrator now conjures that future vision from his digital hat. A nice detail is the strip of LED lighting across the width of the nose, which is meant to evoke the chrome trim strip in the Gullwing’s grille. All in all, it doesn’t look bad, does it?
French Flair at DS
Meanwhile, in France, they are taking their retro dream a step further. DS regularly delves into its past and naturally primarily encounters the eponymous Citroën, but in 2024, a DS suddenly appeared out of the blue that harked back to the Citroën SM. That concept car, appropriately named SM Tribute, looks even more extravagant than Mercedes-Benz’s Vision Iconic, but the basic idea is the same. Here too, it’s about a striking cut from the (slightly less distant) past.
Even after more than fifty years, the venerable SM remains an extremely remarkable appearance, so it’s not surprising that its retro reincarnation is entirely incomparable to anything else. In designing the SM Tribute, DS allowed itself a little more contemporary creative freedom than Mercedes-Benz, so the similarities with the original might be a bit harder to spot. Nevertheless, the basic shape is typically SM, with the partially covered rear wheels, the large rear window ‘lying’ on the car’s back, and the headlights housed in a ‘glass’ panel.
Our digital artist had a somewhat greater challenge with the SM in translating the whole into a possible production car. And so, the result is a car that you will certainly never encounter on public roads in this form. But oh well, one can dream.
Do you consider retro sacrilege? Then take a look at an original SM, which you can fortunately still find. Yes, they are expensive, but compared to classic SLs…