Bi-Colour S-Class disaster from ART

After their spectacularly attractive 221 Avantgarde S-Class concept ART seem to have accident spilled some paint and fried some plastic in their design studio and decided to put a price on it.

Two-tone madness

ART takes a standard S-Class and then adds the attractive Avantgarde sourced front spoiler featuring a headlamp set split into Xenon upper-beam headlamps and halogen fog lamps with turning light functionality.

Side skirts round off the flanks and a rear skirt with integrated rear diffuser optimises airflow balance in conjunction with the trunk lid spoiler, ensuring high-speed cruising stability. In essence it's the ART 221 Avantgarde S-Class styling package and it looks quite good...

Then things start going a bit awry, shall we say. There is the revised grille treatment which is garish, but nothing quite tops the ridiculous paintjob. ART calls it Bi-Colour multiple-layer in Bronze and Sandstone.

They say it brings out the full brilliance of the composed design, with decorative lines left and right for elegant optical delineation of the two colour zones. We say look at the pictures and experience the horror.

A little bit of go

A performance exhaust system and revised engine electronics only manages to raise power from 285kW to 296kW, whilst the 5.5-litre V8 sees an incremental increase in torque from 530Nm to 550Nm. So if you were hoping for plenty of supplemental performance to ensure as few people as possible see you commuting from and to work, you'll be disappointed too.

Handling has been sharpened up by reworking the adaptive electronic suspension to decrease menial ride height by 35mm, whilst the new monoART1 20-inch alloy 255/35ZR20 tyres up front and 285/30ZR20s at the rear combine to herald the single aesthetic saving grace of the package.

Step inside though and the two-tone colour contrast mismanagement continues in hues of Mocca and Sandy Beige. Nearly all the trim, handles, inlays and every other conceivable surface has been details with either colour.

If you really hate your S-Class ART could seems to have just the styling package for you?