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Mercedes-Benz builds a hall

Mercedes-Benz builds a hall

Wayne Cunningham Managing Editor / Roadshow
Wayne Cunningham reviews cars and writes about automotive technology for CNET's Roadshow. Prior to the automotive beat, he covered spyware, Web building technologies, and computer hardware. He began covering technology and the Web in 1994 as an editor of The Net magazine.
Wayne Cunningham
Showing the importance of the Frankfurt Auto Show, Mercedes-Benz built a huge multilevel showroom inside a concert hall. The Festhalle in Frankfurt, the location of the IAA, is a large convention center consisting of 10 halls. When we got to hall 2, the Daimler-Chrysler hall, my German photographer informed me that he'd previously seen the Rolling Stones perform here. The bottom level had areas for Smart, Maybach, and the S-Class. Going up a curved ramp with a blond wood floor reminiscent of the Guggenheim in New York, the top floor featured the rest of the Mercedes-Benz model line. We also found ourselves not far from the concert lights still hanging from the ceiling of the dome-shaped hall.