After ten years of leading the U.S. luxury vehicle sales charts, Lexus may shortly be dethroned by the previous leader, Mercedes-Benz, as well as BMW. While Lexus sales have been recuperating this year from the first half of last year’s poor sales result, the Mercedes-Benz sales have been going up really fast.
One likely reason for this discrepancy is the chain of recalls Lexus has had this present year, which includes accelerator pedals, floor mats, leaking gas tanks and defective valve-springs. Also, based on the reports, the the strong sales of Mercedes-Benz has been greatly influenced by the release of the new E-Class.
Last month, the sales of Lexus went up by merely 2.7 percent in contrast to the 25 percent and 15 percent boost in sales of Mercedes and BMW respectively. Until Lexus sort out its problems and convince its clients that their quality problems have been dealt with, Toyota’s premium brand could descend behind both German brands.
The Nurburgring is so amazing that it has become the epicenter of ‘ego battle’ between carmakers that aim at performance. A huge number of vehicles target to get ahead of the Nordschelife record lap time for their specific category. The German tarmac has a capacity to serve far more than its original testing and racing purposes. These vehicles and competitions have transformed as a great instrument for marketing. Sites like Nurburgring, even attract attention of spy photographers and have turned out to be one of their hot spots.
The main motive for a grand gamut of go-fast vehicles is not only to obliterate the ring record but to beat it significantly. Pagani Zonda R is one such latest car which has been able to achieve such a feat. According to reports by the Top Gear Italia, Pagani Zonda R has fired through the entire track in 6 m and 47 s. Still, this record is not the main record that most super powered car producers intend to beat. Instead of it, the car makers aim at targeting the best time in the category incorporating racing versions of the road legal machines. To be more precise about this category of super cars, it includes the most admired “la crème de le crème” of the automotive world, inaugurated by Ferrari F599XX, better known as the consumer racing program of Ferrari.
It is a fact that the Ferrari F599XX’s record time was easily beaten by the sports version of Pagani Zonda. The racing horse’s racer also achieved a Nordschelife lap time of 6.58 minutes.
There are merely 15 units of Zonda R in the whole word. It is a ‘super vehicle’ that weighs just 1070 kg and is propelled by 6 L V12 unit custom developed by AMG. The engine punishes the wheel at the rear with 750 hp and an earth shattering torque of 710 Nm. The car is priced at EUR 500,000 and manages to sprint from 0 to 62 miles per hour in mere 2.7 seconds.
Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG is one of the top sports cars in the world. This world renowned, top caliber car that offers a maximum 563hp with functional gullwing doors is truly a representation of great German engineering. Though based on Iniside Line, their sources confirmed that the SLS AMG was actually designed to be the next-generation Dodge Viper.
Based on the information, while the Dodge engineers were in the process of designing the next-generation Viper, having already finished the aluminum chassis and completing the new suspension. Mercedes received news of their developments and reached a decision that the chassis would be the precise starting point for their forthcoming SLS. Apparently, Mercedes paired up with Chrysler for the project until Chrysler’s fund ran short, causing the Dodge team to concentrate its resources somewhere else. The conclusion was a brand-new SLS for Mercedes and a temporary halt in Dodge’s Viper lineup. Additionally, Inside Line supported their claims about the Viper turned SLS through spy photos of the early SLS prototypes having fitted with poorly assembled Viper sheet metal.
Though Mercedes owned Chrysler at the time, it’s hard to criticize the German carmaker for making use of existing engineering work for bringing the SLS to market at a lesser expense. Viper enthusiasts are still hoping that Dodge would finally feature the Viper aluminum chassis in their 2012 release.
We won’t be discussing the actually Superbowl game here, although it was definitely one of the more exciting ones that I’ve seen recently, but we will discuss the Audi ad for a bit. It’s definitely not the first time Audi had made fun of the competition, but it sure is one of their better ones. Besides starring Jason Statham, the new Jean-Claude Van Damme of our times and star of any movie that involves blowing stuff up and punching 20 guys senseless at the same time, we get to see the new supercharged A6, and drivability when chased by two Buell Ulysses bikes. A Mercedes Benz 280SE 4.5 also stars in the movie-like commercial, along with an ’80s BMW 5-Series and a Lexus ES that Jason didn’t even bother driving.
I have to admit, I did enjoy the ad, and was probably the better one last night. They could even make it into a movie, hey, it’s not like Transporter 3 had a better plot and they made that into a movie.
Welcome back everyone. I hope you had a fantastic holiday week. To kick things off, here is a comparison test from our favorite guys over at Top Gear. They devoted almost an entire show segment for comparing the brand new C63 AMG against the new M3 and mixing it up with the somewhat older RS4. While the last video I posted was in German, and some people were confused on who actually won, this one is in English, but you will still be confused on which cars is better. There are 3 videos, so be sure to hit more for the additional two.
Here is a video that everyone can relate to, not just when buying a car, but when making other big-ticket decisions. This guy finally decided, after 14 years of service, to trade in his Nissan Pathfinder. Almost two months of research narrowed down his choices to the Audi A4 quattro, Mercedes-Benz C350 4MATIC and BMW 328xi Sedan. He could have just visited this site to get all the fantastic C350 reviews and comparison test and save himself some time. It is nice that he actually took all three cars for a test drive and compared them not only on the looks and specs, but the performance. Watch the video to see which car he picks.
According to Top Gear’s September Issue from egmcartech’s report, the production version of the Ocean Drive concept will most like tackle the RR Drophead. The performance and amenities will be closer to the Drophead than the speculated competitor A7 from Audi.
“The Mercedes-Benz Ocean Drive… will extract 510 horsepower from a 5.5 liter V8 with the range topper having a V12 engine that produces anywhere from 525 to 550 horsepower. A 6.2 liter AMG that produces 604 horsepower is also on the drawing board.” The performance will no doubt be a class leader. With the pricing set lower than the RR Drophead, it will definately fill the gap between the S and the upper-market.
“…in a real-world setting, it (Ocean Drive) has a presence that demands your attention and respect. The only other production car I can think of to have the same guvnor effect is the Phantom.”Lee Brimble of Top Gear
Auto-Motor-und-Sport has put the Mercedes S450 against the A8 flagship from Audi. I have to say that the Audi impresses me a lot, not just with its beautiful design, but also with it performance. According to the guys over at AMuS, the A8 can follow the S-class nicely in the curves, but the effort from the driver to keep the car from understeering is much greater than the ones in the Merc.
Also in things comfort is the s-class a force that is hard to beat; with its air-suspension and comfortable seats, it gives the driver a very pleasant drive, that the A8 can’t match.
The Audi, with simpler operation as well as substantially more favorable fixed costs and lower purchase price, couldn’t convince the test drivers, so yet again the S-class is declared the winner.
For some stupid reason Google can’t translate the page, so I have provided it on this page. Read it by clicking more.
It is really fascinating to see how the guys over at Car and Driver spend their day, aside from getting the chance to drive some nice cars and write a review, this time they got three of the best car in their segment, of course they are all German, and put the against each other for a ferocious bullfight.
As may know, the E63 is the best E-class so far, and it really shows in this test, not only have they fixed the little problems that the C&D tester had last year, but they created a monster conceiled under a beautiful skin.
I don’t want to reveal anything, so go to Car and Driver and read the whole comparison test, or click on more to see it here.
This has to be the biggest and most exciting test done by Autobild or any other magazine. They have brought together every AMG model available currently for a comparison test that will be remembered for decades, I mean when will they do this again, not any time soon. The car’s power ranges from 360hp to 612hp and the price goes from as little as 65.986 Euro for the C55 to 211.761 Euro for the S65. The spectacle that Autobild has created with 16 AMG models would cost one 1.843.077 Euro if they were to buy every single model.
Here is the translated Autobild site, unfortunately one has to pay to get access to the full review. If you are financially stable, I would suggest you buy the pdf file (and if you could be so nice, maybe you could send me a copy) for all the other cheap bastards, we just have to wait until they release it to the public in a couple of weeks.
After ten years of leading the U.S. luxury vehicle sales charts, Lexus may shortly be dethroned by the previous leader, Mercedes-Benz, as well as BMW. While Lexus sales have been recuperating this year from the first half of last year’s poor sales result, the Mercedes-Benz sales have been going up really fast.
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