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Mercedes ESF 2009 Worthy of Speed Racer

June 15th, 2009 | 4 comments

Mercedes has always been a leading innovator of safety gizmos that help pull your vehicular ass out of the frying pan when things go terribly, terribly wrong.  Every once in a while, they show off what’s next in preventing your insides from becoming your outsides in an auto accident with a marketing-oriented test vehicle.  They are parading the ESF (experimental Safety Vehicle – yeah, it’s German) 2009 around the world to show off their engineering talent right now.

One of the things you’ll see in the video below is a “braking bag.”  This is the modern equivalent of Fred Flintstone ramming his heels into the ground to slow down his car or Speed Racer pushing one of those buttons on his steering wheel.  An airbag forces a plate into the ground as a last ditch effort to prevent you from careening off the edge of the paved universe.  Hope I never need one.  The other stuff is pretty neat too.

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Related posts:

  1. Don’t Park Next to a Mercedes R-Class
  2. The 2009 New York International Auto Show
  3. Speed Racer’s Back!

June 15th, 2009 | Category: Stuff with a Motor | 4 comments
  • john bower

    the braking bag, man i was thinking about that 20 years ago, main problem i thought would be directional stability, in fact with the bag set so far forward, i wonder about it in this configuration. heck the germans probably have computer controlled inflation to various sectors within the bag with direction corrections determned by a gyroscopic sensor.

    well i got them beat. you’re right, you heard it here first, inertia cancelling spray in a convenient aerosol (non ozone depleting propellant) spray can. just spray yourself, your passengers, your car and cup o coffee at the last millisecond prior to impact and badda boom, you, your passengers and car come to an instant stop, your coffee won’t even slosh. just make sure it doesn’t get sucked into the engine, it takes a few moments to wear off and in the interim, it wreaks havoc on the performance of the flywheel.

    i’m sure this is what they use on NCC-1701 (the enterprise) but i’ve got patent priority over them, as they ain’t even born yet, it’ll be years before they file….

    john bower

  • john bower

    the braking bag, man i was thinking about that 20 years ago, main problem i thought would be directional stability, in fact with the bag set so far forward, i wonder about it in this configuration. heck the germans probably have computer controlled inflation to various sectors within the bag with direction corrections determned by a gyroscopic sensor.

    well i got them beat. you’re right, you heard it here first, inertia cancelling spray in a convenient aerosol (non ozone depleting propellant) spray can. just spray yourself, your passengers, your car and cup o coffee at the last millisecond prior to impact and badda boom, you, your passengers and car come to an instant stop, your coffee won’t even slosh. just make sure it doesn’t get sucked into the engine, it takes a few moments to wear off and in the interim, it wreaks havoc on the performance of the flywheel.

    i’m sure this is what they use on NCC-1701 (the enterprise) but i’ve got patent priority over them, as they ain’t even born yet, it’ll be years before they file….

    john bower

  • http://www.2-speed.com/ Will

    John’s the man on this one. I can prove he owns prior art as far back as 7th grade when he came up with aerosol inertia canceler. :-)

  • http://www.2-speed.com Will

    John’s the man on this one. I can prove he owns prior art as far back as 7th grade when he came up with aerosol inertia canceler. :-)