Mercedes owners love to brag about how comfortable their cars are. "It's like driving around in a couch," said one friend of ours, who refuses to give us his car so that we can experience it for ourselves, on a full-time basis. (Jerk.)
The fact of the matter is that many luxury cars are actually more comfortable than most couches. Certainly, they have the average piece of office furniture beat — which is why we were so delighted to discover that one artist is making office furniture out of old Mercedes parts. South African designer Katie Thompson, known for repurposing junk into art, is collaborating with Mercedes to create furniture so comfortable, you'll never want to leave the office.
"A car seat as an office chair, a dashboard as a desk, a rear mirror as a table lamp: The interior fittings of an SL are granted a second life as elegant office furnishings," says a representative from Mercedes.
Thompson worked with local artisans to transform parts of a Mercedes-Benz SL into office furniture. Her innovations included:
A desk made out of a dashboard, in which the speedometer becomes a magnetized pad, the air vents become a slot for business cards, the rev counter becomes a world clock, and the ignition lock is replaced with a USB charger. Possibly the coolest desk we've seen since this one.
The rear-view mirror becomes a desk lamp. Comes in handy when you're trying to avoid coworkers who sneak up on you while you're working.
The gas and brake pedals become a pen holder.
The driver's seat becomes the most comfortable and best-looking office chair we have ever seen. Seriously, look at this thing:
You would feel like king of the office sitting in that chair. In fact, if we had that chair, we would insist on rolling ourselves into every meeting, making vroom vroom sounds and gripping an imaginary steering wheel. (Which reminds us: We couldn't find out what happened to the steering wheel. Perhaps Thompson and Mercedes-Benz should consider an add-on feature for the chair? We could see it becoming an excellent laptop table, or perhaps eating tray, since once you sat in this chair, you'd never want to get out of it.)
For more on this cool line of office furniture, and on Katie Thomson's other "junk" reclamation art projects, watch the video below.
Images: Bornrich.com
