Mercedes-Benz' Version of the Human-Machine Interface

Recently, Audi showed its next generation human-machine interface technology which wowed all car enthusiasts.

Not to be left behind, Mercedes-Benz updated the A-Class concept with a 3D screen. Although, for now, the only thing that it can do is to show multi-level views for its nav system, which Mercedes says will give more intuitive information absorption.

The company also promises that the future systems will have a voice and touch command, not only for the nav system, but also for other electronic systems. Imagine yourself, not lifting your hands off the wheel but changing your car radio's tuner just by commanding it.

The future cars will have free voice browsing that allows the driver to speak naturally and still engage with the system. It will be as if they will be speaking to another human instead of a machine that only understand keystrokes and cryptic commands. All these are being developed to ensure that you will have a nice distraction-free driving.

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S-Class in a Collision in Monte Carlo

Upon seeing this photo, you'd think that this is just a joke, a part of a comic book, but it is not. This scene actually happened in Monte Carlo.

Tagged as the most expensive minor collision in the automotive world as the damage was estimated to have reached six figures, the Bentley Azure bumped the rear of Mercedes-Benz S-class. The women in the Azure also hit an Aston Martin Rapide, Porsche 911 and Ferrari F430. The S-Class though had been fortunate enough to leave the scene, unlike the F430.

The authorities were there on the scene as there are already some of them on standby at the Place du Casino. And as the place is filled with people, a lot of them turned into paparazzi, shooting cameras at the luxury car exhibit-like collision.

Photo from : Benzinsider.com

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Daimler Releases the Chronicle of the Company

The new chronicle of the company is going to be made available. The 432 pages book of illustrations and images is introduced in line with the company's 125^th year in the automobile industry.

The first part will show the biographies of the founder Car Benz, Wilhelm Maybach and Gottlieb Daimler. The next part, consists of about 250 pages shows the events in the “life” of the oldest car manufacturer in the world, from 1883 which is Daimler's first engine test until the 125^th anniversary celebration in January 2011.

Opening the chronicle alone is already a journey to the development of the automotive company as it has over 1,800 images that tells Mercedes-Benz/Daimler's history.

"With its many original photos from our archives and meticulously researched facts presented, the new Chronicle impressive as the pioneering work of Carl Benz, Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach, a global group is created, not only for the invention of the automobile is, but through constant innovation and ensure the mobility of future generations,” says Michael Bock, head of Mercedes-Benz Classic.

The Daimler Chronicle, despite the fact that it's still not in the market until August 16, already won two awards, "Best of Corporate Publishing Award" gave the Chronicle the title "Specials & Annuals - Corporate Books" and "Cover of the Year " silver medals.

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The New Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Coupe Black Series is Officially Launched

Dubbed as the most powerful C-Class of all time, the Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Coupe Black series carries AMG's thrust, Driving Performance.

The model boasts a maximum torque of 620 newton meters with an output of up to 510bhp. What, with the 6.3L V8 engine, it's no surprise that underneath its beauty is its power. Other than that, the car, in 4.2 seconds, accelerates from zero to 100km/h. It is also equipped with an AMG high-performance compound brake system, AMG coil sports suspension and other functional standard equipment.

The Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Coupe Black Series was officially launched in the “Night of the Stars” event at Nurburgring.

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$2 Billion Expansion Plan for Mercedes USA's Plant

Daimler recently announced that Mercedes-Benz will invest an amount of $2 billion to its Tuscaloosa, Alabama plant. The plan is to support the production of the current and future M-Class and the GL- and C-Class as well.
This upgrade in the Mercedes-Benz manufacturing plant is also expected to help the German automaker win the tough battle with BMW to the number one spot as forecasts say that Lexus, after 11 years of dominance in the numbers game, will lose this year.

Dr.Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of the Board of Daimler Board Management and Head of Mercedes-Benz Cars stated, “Tuscaloosa was the first production location of Mercedes-Benz Cars ever outside Germany, and today it is among our best. As our ‘pioneering plant’, it is also the blueprint for our new operations in emerging markets.”

The news was announced at an event made in celebration of the 2012 M-Class' first production.

Source: Benzinsider.com

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A Meeting Place for AMG Enthusiast : AMG Private in Affalterbach

AMG owners and buyers now have a place they could chill out and network with other AMG enthusiasts. The company, built a 5,651 square feet place ideal for a good conversation in Affalterbach. It is said that the lounge, with colors black and white in minimalistic design is aimed to foster customer relations and to also support the growing AMG community.

The private lounge also caters to the hungry ones as they have a dining area that has a photographic motif of Paul Richard Race circuit and a garden with a Japanese Zen style. The place is also seen to be an event venue as AMG equipped it with an incredible sound system from Bang & Olfusen. Meanwhile the walls, called “lifestyle wall”, displays selected exhibits from the company's partners, IWC and Ducati.

“The new AMG Private Lounge in Affalterbach is an exclusively and unusually designed meeting-point in which to spend time. We see it as a second living-room for our customers. We want the AMG Private Lounge in Affalterbach to provide the perfect setting for the most exciting day of the year – for example when our customers take possession of their new AMG-Mercedes here in Affalterbach,” said the chairmn of Mercedes-AMG GmbH, Ola Källenius.

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Video: Acura Integra with Mercedes-Benz Body

This space-ship looking car is great, not only in terms of catching our attention with its unique lime green color but also in terms of the over-all design and what's under the hood. This Acura Integra Coupe was turned into a top-down model that has a custom body kit similar to some Mercedes-Benz' trick door cars and roadsters.

Here's the video:

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Photos of Mercedes-Benz CLS by Lorinser

One of the most famous tuner of Mercedes-Benz, Lorinser, released the first photos of their CLS C218 kit. The body of the vehicle has a new aerodynamic kit with new side air vents, rear boot lid, roof spoiler, bumper extensions and side skirts which made it look AMG-ish.

Other improvements that Lorinser put in the Mercedes-Benz CLS C218 are front fenders and a new exhaust system with four squared tailpipes. The body is painted in silver and matte black finish and it includes new two set of rims. Suspension is lowered too. No information about the engine has been released yet but we'll sure post it once it becomes available.

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Mercedes-Benz', Climatic Tunnel Now Functional

Gone are the days that the car manufacturer will need to keep sending vehicles to different parts of the world to test the cars' performance in extreme weather conditions. Thanks to the genius of the people from Mercedes-Benz, the climatic tunnel is now full functional.

This tunnel can create different temperatures from 40 degrees Fahrenheit to 140 degrees and more. It also can simulate hurricane like winds of 165 mph and rain. Each tunnels has twin-axle roller dynamometer with speed that can reach 265km/h.

Although these tunnels will be used to measure weather conditions, it will not be a substitute for road testing, according to Ulrich Mellinghoff, Head of Mercedes Safety Development, “We don't want to use the new climatic wind tunnels as a substitute for road testing, but we can now do less of it and are also far better prepared when we do go out. For example, if we have 20 different engine heat shields, we can already eliminate many of them in the climatic wind tunnel because they don't have the desired effect.” He also added, ““We will then go on to do real-life testing with just the most promising two or three variants. We therefore spare ourselves a lot of very time-consuming road tests early on, and yet our prototypes are still at a much further advanced stage of development. And that means that we can meet our very challenging objectives much sooner .”

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Mercedes' Move to Revive Smart's Sales

In an attempt to increase the sales of the Smart brand, Mercedes-Benz made a move. First, create a new executive team which is called Daimler Vehicle Innovations USA, which is led by Tracey Matura. Matura was the general manager of Mercedes-Benz strategic retail development group before being asked to take on the new team that will revive smart.

The first thing the new team is doing is to incorporate smart cars in Mercedes' showrooms. Taking the top spot in the survey for customer satisfaction, this move aims to remind consumers that smart is also being made by Daimler group thus quality and superiority is innate in the vehicles. There are already 75 Mercedes dealerships that carry the brand, Matura's goal is to have 100 by year's end.

This move is being undertaken because of the poor sales performance of smart cars in the past year. Penske Group only sold about 5,927 smartfortwos last year.

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Brabus' Take on the Mercedes-Benz E-Class Cabriolet

German tuner Brabus came up with their newest project based on the Mercedes-Benz E-Class Cabriolet. The name of the kit is Brabus E V12 Cabriolet, taking its name from the tuner's very own engine, the Brabus 800 V12 twin-turbo, 12 cylinder which powered the car to an impressive 800HP and 1,047 lb.ft., of torque.

Brabus claims that it is the currently the fastest 4-seat cabriolet because the V12 engine is connected to a 5-speed automatic gearbox and is installed with an stainless steel construction exhaust system with four tail pipes. The car's top speed, the tuner said, could reach an astounding 231mph.

Meanwhile, the exterior's design is composed of LED daytime running lights, front sports fender and rear carbon fender flares. Performance tires from Pirelli, YOKOHAMA and Continental can be installed depending on the buyer's wants.

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AMG Emotion Tours : Experience Grand Vacation with High Performance Vehicles

AMG came up with an activity that will satisfy car lovers' longing to experience riding the high-performance vehicle. The tour, composed of different packages, will also let them experience living it up with lifestyle tours.

All tours will start in Affalterbach and will travel on an AMG car to the destination that is part of the package that you choose. The Montreaux package includes fine dining and partying at Lake Geneva for the popular Garden Party and Jazz Festival while the golf package will take you to Munich with Bernd Schneider and Robert Baker. To DTM fans you can take the package that will bring you to watch DTM racing up close.

If you have 'play money', you can join the Masters SLS AMG Experience which is kind of like the AMG Driving Academy only much posh, as it will take you circling the famous European tracks of La Castellet, Sachsenring, Spa-Francorchamps and Nordschleife behind the wheels of an SLS GT3.

Prices for the tour ranges from €570 for the Spirit of SLS AMG to €6,280 for the Masters SLS AMG Experience.

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Sprinter Sales Increase in Half of 2011

An article from Wards Auto reported a double in sales figure of Mercedes-Benz' Sprinter van. The Silver Arrow delivered a total of 5,185 units, a 102.1% increase compared to the numbers posted in the same time last year.

The vans were sold before as Dodge by Chrysler. Right now, out of the 353 Mercedes-Benz dealerships, 108 of them is currently selling the Sprinter as well as some Freightliner dealers and the number is also increasing.

Price of the passenger van costs $39,000 and has 200 stand-alone options and 24 packages that are optional. With these prices and choices, the van is beginning to be the pick for those offering chauffeur services and big families.

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Mercedes-Benz ML 350 Disguised as a Honda CRV in China

A China news article reported and showed pictures of a Honda CRV police car with an uncanny resemblance to Mercedes-Benz ML350, or so it seems.

The article which gathered a lot of negative comments directed to Fengchenggang city government, said that it is indeed the luxury car which was re-badged in an attempt to conceal the fact that the car is priced at 900,000 yuan ($140,000). In the midst of issues regarding the government wasting taxpayers' money, they changed the logo on the grill and tailgate to the big “H” and removed the three-star logo that is found in all Mercedes-Benz vehicles.

The change backfired to the authorities as the citizens learned about the truth. With almost everyone in the world learning about cars because of Internet access, it is no surprise that they immediately learned about the 'masking' attempt.

Below is the original ML350 for comparison.

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Mercedes-Benz USA June Sales Increased

June 2011 sales figure has been released by Mercedes-Benz USA and the numbers are looking good. MBUSA sold a total of 22,653 units for this month representing an increase of 18.8% from June 2010. This is the highest number for June and also the highest for the first half of the year. Meanwhile, the YTD sales is 118,021 vehicles which penned a 10.4% increase in the company's books.
The E-Class and C-Class came in first in this numbers game as the 5,798 units of 9^th generation of E-Class was sold. The C-Class sold a total of 4,620 while the the M-Class was able to finish at third with 3,071. Another milestone for the company was its sales for 2012 CLS-class 4-door coupe increased by 645.5% and the GL-Class SUV increased by 75.9% based on June 2010 sales.

The table below shows the detailed MBUSA sales figures.

Source: Emercedesbenz.com

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Spyphotos of C63 AMG Black Series

C63 AMG Black Series has been revealed! Albeit unofficially, the guys at speedfans.fr showed leaked photos of the much awaited car.

The car, as reported about a couple of months ago will have 507HP but now, the article says it is 510HP which is not really a big difference, considering the rider will no longer feel it because of the car's speed. The engine is reported to be 6.2-liter V8 and seven-speed ‘Speedshift’ MCT Automatic will also be available.

Enough said. Just look at the photos below and get excited.

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