Gorden Wagener may no longer hold the title of Chief Design Officer at Mercedes, but his latest activity shows the brand’s design legacy is still close to his heart. He recently shared images of a concept that revisits one of the most legendary racing sedans to ever wear a three-pointed star, bringing a 1970s icon into a modern design conversation.
The digital concept nods to the 1971 Mercedes 300 SEL 6.8 AMG, famously nicknamed the ‘Red Pig’, the bruiser sedan that helped put AMG on the global performance map long before Mercedes took a controlling stake in the company in 1999.
There has been no formal reveal from Mercedes, but the car appears in the book Iconic Design by Gorden Wagener, Thomas Ammann, and Marc-Stefan Andres, released by Delius Klasing in November 2025. Wagener himself labelled it simply as an unseen Showcar, offering no deeper backstory and letting the images do the talking.
Reading between the lines, it feels like a private design exploration that lived behind closed doors rather than a project destined for a motor show stand. Big manufacturers often run these exercises to test ideas without production pressure, and this looks very much like one of those cases.
Visually, the car mixes old-school Mercedes proportions with sharp, modern surfacing and high-tech lighting. The front end is dominated by a large chrome grille that mirrors themes seen on the latest electric models, hinting at a broader family look. Vertical headlight elements and extra LED rings set low in the bumper give it a dramatic face.
The body is tightly sculpted with a sleek greenhouse and flowing lines that echo recent Mercedes and AMG concepts, creating a retro-meets-future vibe. Details like a classic-style splitter, period-inspired racing graphics, and five-spoke alloys wrapped in AMG-branded rubber anchor it to its motorsport roots. At the rear, slim full-width LED taillights sit low, paired with additional LED rings integrated into the diffuser.
From certain perspectives, the design also recalls the one-off Mercedes-Benz S600 Royale, another retro-modern experiment that blended heritage cues with contemporary luxury.
The real Red Pig earned its legend at the 1971 24 Hours of Spa, taking a class victory and finishing second overall despite lining up against much lighter rivals. It started life as a W109 luxury sedan, later transformed with flared arches, extra lighting, lowered suspension, and a heavily reworked engine connected to a five-speed manual.
That 6.8-litre V8 delivered 422 hp (315 kW), enough to push the 1,635 kg sedan to a top speed of 265 km/h (165 mph). Those numbers, and the image of a giant red sedan battling nimble race cars, helped build AMG’s early reputation brick by brick.
The original car reportedly met an unglamorous end, scrapped after retirement and used for aerospace testing by Matra. Mercedes later corrected history in 2006 by constructing an accurate replica from a 300 SEL 6.3 donor, using original plans and archive photography to bring the Red Pig back to life.
