Mercedes-Benz Builds a Golf Cart - and It Isn't a Smart

by Mark Stevenson

Published: July 13th, 2016

mercedes benz builds a golf cart and it isn t a smart

Some eight years after the now-defunct Motive Magazine put a Smart ForTwo to work on an urban golf course, Mercedes is finally catching up to support its customers’ favorite pastime.

Revealed yesterday, the Mercedes-Benz Style Edition Garia Golf Car isn’t just a glitzed up golf cart made to look like a miniature GLE Coupe. Instead, it’s the product of a competition started in 2013 to build the best golf cart or nothing.

In true Mercedes-Benz fashion, the three-pointed-star automaker dropped a 16-page press release to promote its new golf cart, which is a collaboration between Mercedes-Benz designers, Daimler’s Think & Act Tank Business Innovation and golf-cart manufacturer Garia.

According to the release, “In 2013, Mercedes-Benz called upon golf and automobile fans from around the world to submit their ideas for a Mercedes-Benz golf cart of the future. While golf has developed into a premium sport with a modern face, golf carts have remained almost unchanged for decades.”

The Mercedes-Benz golf cart isn’t just an overly designed fairway runabout.

The showcar brings with it a design reminiscent of a baseball cap ( because we know how well that analogy went last time) with features unique to the golf cart industry. A carbon fibre roof that keeps the cart’s center of gravity low, a refrigerator under its lounge-style seat, and many bottle holders for your Michelob Ultra. Drivers can operate the cart’s vehicle dynamics functions (yes, it has a ‘sport’ mode) through a large 10.1-inch touchscreen, which also doubles as a digital scorecard. Bringing it all together are 14-inch wheels, which Mercedes states give the cart the “dynamism for which Mercedes-Benz passenger cars are known,” and a carbon fiber rear diffuser to make sure you don’t tip this real sportscar in those high-speed golf-cart-path sweepers.

The electric cart has a maximum output (during electric overboost) of 11 kilowatts (14.75 horsepower) and a range of 80 kilometers (50 miles).

There are no plans to offer the Garia next to ForTwos on the right side of Mercedes-Benz showrooms.

[Images: Daimler]

#Garia #Golf #GolfCart #Mercedes-Benz

Mark Stevenson

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SunnyvaleCA on Jul 13, 2016

Three words: Bubba Watson Hovercraft Goes right over the water hazards! Check out on youtube.

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Felix Hoenikker on Jul 16, 2016

I would like to use my 74 450SL convertible as a golf cart. There's plenty of room for two sets of clubs behind the front seats. It would be the only V8 cart on the course. Plus, you could drive it back and forth to the course.

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