Proportions first
Mercedes-Benz recorded Köhl’s view that progressiveness can require a radical approach and that everything starts with proportions, in its account of the EQS transition from three-box to one-bow design.
People
Steffen Köhl
Former Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design leader and SLR McLaren co-stylist
- Nationality
- German
Wikimedia Commons
The record
German automotive designer who joined Mercedes-Benz’s passenger-car design division in 1988, was named with Gorden Wagener as a stylist of the production SLR, and led Advanced Design from 2008 to 2024.
After graduating from the Pforzheim School for Transportation Design, Köhl joined Mercedes-Benz’s passenger-car design division in 1988. Boat International says his work there covered interior and exterior design. A June 2026 report by SG Pforzheim Eutingen identifies him as a former student of the then FHG and says that he led Advanced Design at Mercedes-Benz from 2008 to 2024.
Boat International lists Köhl’s contributions to Mercedes-Benz vehicles and show cars including the E-Class, CLK, SL, SLR, SLS, Bionic-Car and F800 Style. Il Giornale reports a one-year 2000 assignment in Woking on the SLR McLaren project. Peter Robinson’s 2003 Car and Driver preview calls Köhl and Gorden Wagener the production SLR’s stylists; Wagener later said he won the internal competition for the 1999 Detroit Vision SLR concept as a rookie.
Boat International records that since 2008 he led Mercedes-Benz’s Center for Global Advanced Design, while a 2026 report says that responsibility ended in 2024. Der Spiegel described him in 2010 as the head of Mercedes Advanced Design. He discussed the F 015’s exterior-design process with Architectural Digest in 2015, and Mercedes-Benz later quoted him on the shift from three-box forms to one-bow proportions for the EQS.
Advanced Design brief
Der Spiegel’s 2010 report quoted Köhl on preparing Mercedes-Benz for a future in which conventional comfort and driving pleasure would no longer define the car.
The stations
- 1988–2008Mercedes-Benz passenger-car design divisionInterior and exterior design
- 2008–2024Mercedes-BenzLeader, Center for Global Advanced Design
The house
Credited through Mercedes-Benz Design.
In the register
One file carries this name
The files above are the register's own record of this name. The people index holds everyone the register credits.
In their words
“We want to create something for people. Something that they like to look at, like to touch. Something they really love.”
Steffen Köhl · Mercedes-Benz, “The all-electric EQS heralds a new era of design” (undated)