Response to the Mercedes Benz "Boxfish" Concept

Taking aspects of nature and incorporating them into one’s design is nothing new, in fact it is probably the oldest form of design on the planet. If objects in nature such as the Nautilus can arrange themselves accurately into mathematical formulas like the Fibonacci sequence, then it is fairly safe to say that they are doing something right. For this reason, I thought that the topic of the Mercedes Benz concept car that was adapted from the shape of a boxfish was very interesting, because it provided proof of nature as a design mantra.
However, I was a little disappointed when I actually researched the car. In fact, I didn’t get very far past the picture. While yes, indeed the car does show reflections of the boxfish both in color and shape, I think that it is too literal a translation of biological design. A product or design can be representative of an animal or plant without actually looking like someone superimposed the features of that animal onto an automobile frame. This might be a slight exaggeration in this case, but it is still the jist of the problem with the Mercedes.
While, yes, there is an explanation to WHY the biologists and researchers chose the boxfish for their design inspiration, the fact that they actually had to have an explanation for it is the problem. A design should speak for itself and its own aesthetic independently of its inspiration. While it is admirable to choose such a “pedestrian” fish for inspiration, it is still more important to create a piece that places aesthetic as priority over literal representation, and that is what I personally think falls short in this vehicle. There are definitely other examples of design let alone that of automobiles that achieves the mission that the Mercedes Benz designers have outlined.