A retired couple from Germany was being serenely wafted along by their two-week old silver 2014 Mercedes S-Class when the car’s engine compartment spontaneously caught fire. The two were able to pull over and get out safely, immediately aided by the employees of a nearby business as well as bystanders to put out the fire; they managed to do so before the emergency crews arrived.
Evident in the (low-res) photos posted below courtesy of Merkur is the exact location of the flame, which created a big cut in the hood – the part that’s missing doesn’t seem to have been intentionally cut off by the fire crew; it looks like it fused with the strut brace and broke upon opening…
The source is clearly not in the front of the engine bay, and it may very well have started at the very place of the gaping hole. That’s also where most of the smoke seems to come from too.
And if you were wondering which engine it was that was powering it, the short answer is the original source didn’t say. However, upon taking a close look at the charred plastic engine cover it looks like a six-cylinder, so it’s probably an S350. The calcinated carcass of the car also looked like it was sagging a lot at the front, so it may have been running on air springs that were damaged too.
By Andrei Nedelea
Photos: Merkur /Rottach-Egern/Benedikt Hübsch , Story References: Autoevolution
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