DRIVING a Mercedes CLS at more than 100mph along a motorway, weaving in and out of cones would be an utterly irresponsible way to test a car’s handling at the limits.
Yet that is exactly what I have just done – without putting anyone in the slightest of danger.
The car flicked from lane to lane as it negotiated a complex course with cruise control set to 105mph.
Feedback through the steering wheel and the response from the suspension was taut and accurate as the CLS sped along.
Seconds before the car had been a handful to drive, feeling positively dangerous at times.
But this is not the real world. This is test driving virtual style in a multi-million pound simulator Mercedes has created to put its models through their paces - even before they are built.
By 2012 the German car maker will have spent around £140 million on simulator technology at its Sindelfingen research and development centre near Stuttgart in Germany.
The facility includes the world’s most advanced virtual driving machine which can move in three dimensions surrounded by high definition graphics.
It’s akin to a theme park ride with attitude and once inside this incredible machine Mercedes can replicate every driving condition imaginable.
Such is the technology that the car I was sitting in for my ‘drive’ was not even a CLS – it was a C-Class saloon hooked up to a bank of computers to mimic in every way how the super coupe would perform.
The 7.5 metre capsule housing the car moves around on giant legs – from the outside it looks like something out of the War of the Worlds but inside the effect is startlingly realistic.
From the driving seat the display of the road is amazingly lifelike while you can even see what is happening behind from a projection into the rear view mirror.
Whether it be driving in traffic, negotiating poor surfaces or trying out an extreme handling exercise, everything is possible at the flick of a switch in the control room adjacent to the simulation module.
Should a vehicle overtake you will see it approaching in the mirrors then pass alongside before accelerating away.
The Moving Base Simulator - as it is known - weighs around 300 tons and fills a room some 200 feet long. Entering the capsule through a retractable walkway from the control centre it feels as though you are embarking on a space mission.
Such is the accuracy of the simulation you can feel body roll, braking and acceleration just as you would in everyday driving. Clip a cone during the handling exercise and you will feel and hear a thud from under the car.
You can even get out of shape – although abuse is frowned upon by the technicians in charge of this very expensive piece of kit.
The first run I carried out was in an uncalibrated CLS which was then refined over a series of virtual journeys to handle acceptably. The differences from raw machine to production ready car were astonishing.
Once the work was complete the settings would then be transferred to a real model for further testing out on the road.
The simulation enables Mercedes to speed up its development programmes while keeping costs down – although the actual prototypes still complete the same rigorous real world test drives clocking up hundreds of thousands of miles to prove reliability before they go on sale.
There are five simulators at Sindelfingen which can be used for a variety of purposes setting up systems such as adaptive headlamps, blind spot warning devices and cancelling out noise and vibration inside the car.
The facility was used to develop Mercedes’ new Magic Body Control system which uses a stereo digital camera to spot potholes in the road and make compensation in the suspension to iron out the bumps.
The high tech ride is still a few years off and is likely to make its debut in the next generation of Mercedes’ luxury S-Class saloon in 2013.
Sindelfingen is the home of the Mercedes ‘future factory’ which is working on a variety of projects ranging from hydrogen fuel cell cars to vehicles smart enough to avoid accidents.
The top secret work has already resulted in a number of recent innovations including driver fatigue monitors which first appeared on the latest E-Class models two years ago.
Other developments about to come into everyday use include a plug-in hybrid powertrain which enables a car to run almost silently on electricity for up to 20 miles in town while still being able to cruise comfortably for long distances at motorway speeds using a combustion engine.
Another will be a traffic jam ‘stress buster’ which uses a combination of radar and digital cameras to enable a car to follow the vehicle in front automatically when in stop/start traffic.
Having experienced both in the futuristic F800 experimental car the results are impressive – especially with the hybrid which offers luxury driving in the city but sports car performance on the open road.
Mercedes is about to celebrate the 125th anniversary of Gottlieb Daimler patenting the motor car on January 29, 1886.
Since those pioneering days the company which Daimler spawned has gone on to register more than 80,000 vehicle patents including devices we now take for granted such as airbags and electronic stability controls.
Behind the scenes at Sindelfingen the engineers may work in a virtual world of automotive development but the millions spent on research produce some very tangible results - as the current crop of Mercedes models only goes to demonstrate.