We’ve gotten various peeks at the Mercedes-Benz A-Class for a few months now, from the to to . Then, of all things in all places, a cyclist with a handlebar-mounted camera of the real deal while riding in Lanzarote, Spain for what we assume is a photo or video shoot.
If you liked the look of the patent drawings, then you’ll be happy with the glimpse here. It even looks close enough to the for us to give Mercedes props for truth-in-concept-car designing. There’s debate as to whether this is the , but regardless, the final version will be shown at next month’s . Until then, watch the video .
hasn’t exactly been secretive about its desire to offer a five-door hatchback version of its ultra-stylish sedan. After all, the first concept for the latest CLS, which was introduced as a 2012 model, introduced us to the at the in 2010. And yes, MB itself called the car a Shooting Break, not Brake.
Based on that concept, we have a pretty solid idea of how the CLS Shooting Brake will look. Judging by these spy shots that were snapped in Northern Sweden, there won’t really be any surprises. And that’s totally fine by us.
We’d expect Mercedes-Benz to deliver its super hatch in both CLS550 (with 4.6-liter twin-turbo V8) and (with 5.5-liter twin-turbo V8) flavors, which means the biggest question left to answer will be whether the company decides to call it the Shooting Brake or the Shooting Break. We, like pretty much everyone else in the world, vote for Brake.
Of all the car shows around the calendar year, the Boca Raton Concours d’Elegance doesn’t typically fall on our radar screen. But maybe it should, because the annual event in Florida – young as it is – has a history of offering firsts. Maybe not the first time a vehicle is seen in North America, mind you, but a first just the same.
the event included the sale of the first examples of the , Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Roadster and Audi R8 GT to be delivered in America. The year it was the (yeah, that’s the one with the V10) and . And before that, the event’s auctioneers sold off the first Audi R8 Spyder, and .
Noticing a pattern here? Organizers have no intention of dropping the ball this year, when they’ll be auctioning off the first U.S. deliveries of the new . Now if you’re thinking that we haven’t even seen the new SL63 AMG yet, you’re absolutely right. The new itself has been shown, but not the AMG version, which is expected to pack Affalterbach’s 5.5-liter twin-turbo V8 with 571 horsepower on tap. Once the car has been unveiled and deliveries commence, the winner of the auction is guaranteed to be the first to get one in the United States.
As if that’s not enough, there will also be an Audi R8 GT Spyder – one of only 50 slated for production and the only one in red to be made available in the U.S. – as well as a and a whole mess of special-edition Shelby muscle cars, with proceeds going to the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Follow for more info, or head down on February 25th to see the bidding frenzy at the Boca Raton Resort & Club.
There’s little question that the (pictured above at left) is an impressive cat, indeed. Five hundred horsepower and a healthy dose of British charm will do that for you, after all. The trouble is that with around 550 hp apiece, the and are that much more impressive. And so Jaguar is reportedly working on a hotter XFR-S.
The more extreme performance sedan has been touted for the past year or so, and has even been spied undergoing development work at the Nürburgring. Following a formula similar to what Jaguar employed to transform the into the XKR-S (pictured above at center), the 5.0-liter supercharged V8 in the XFR-S would have its output – and its price – raised to compete with ze Germans. That means 550 horses and about $90,000.
Would you shell out the extra $8k over the MSRP on the existing XFR, or for that matter, choose it over its rivals? Cast your vote in our poll below.
With six cars joining the grid this year in the DTM series, is sure to present wildly different liveries – largely determined by the sponsors brought on board – for each one. And this is the first.
Based on a sponsorship deal with BP, this particular DTM is decked out in the bright green color of Castrol Edge motor oil and the light blue of German gas station network Aral. This car’s unveiling is the first time we’re seeing the new touring car in anything but flat black or BMW’s trademark striped white color scheme.
To pull of its entry into the competitive German racing series and take on its rivals at and , BMW is bringing in four of its proven factory drivers (including three-time World Touring Car Championship winner Andy Priaulx) and has poached longtime Mercedes AMG driver Bruno Spengler and Audi’s reigning DTM champ Martin Tomczyk.
All eyes will be focused on Hockenheim where the season kicks off in late April.
When is a not a Nissan Juke? When it’s the 480-horsepower, Godzilla-powered Juke-R, that’s when. Then it’s a supercar-beater. And to prove the point, Nissan UK took its one-off super-crossover down to Dubai for a little street racing action.
So what did Nissan pit its Juke-R against? No, not other crossovers, but a pack of the leanest, meanest supercars on the market: the , and . We shot from the sidelines a couple of weeks ago, but since the publicity stunt proved so popular, Nissan responded by releasing an official, high-quality version, complete with in-car footage and plenty of tire squealing. to check it out.
For 15 years, McLaren was the F1 team of choice for , enjoying a near-works level of support and collaboration from the German automaker. But as you may recall, Daimler bought its own team three seasons ago: the outfit that started out as British American Racing, then became before branching out as Brawn GP, was rebranded Mercedes GP under its latest management and now rechristened Mercedes AMG Petronas. And ever since, McLaren has had to deflect speculation that it was looking for a new engine supplier.
Back in November, those rumors, somewhat ironically, centered around Honda, the company that once owned the team now owned by Mercedes-Benz and which was once McLaren’s most victorious engine supplier. The Woking-based outfit scuttled those rumors at the time, and has now had to deny another set, this time involving PURE.
The new engine supplier established by former Jacques Villeneuve manager and BAR-Honda team principal Craig Pollock (with considerable technical know-how from former Peugeot, Renault and engineers) is hard at work designing a new engine to be used from 2014 when the new turbocharged V6 engine regulations come into effect. There’s no telling which teams PURE will power at that point, but one thing McLaren is adamant about is that it won’t be theirs.
Instead, the brass at Woking is insistent that it is perfectly happy in its relationship with Mercedes-Benz, whose racing engine operations are linked to its eponymous racing team by little more than name and common ownership. McLaren, then, is expected to stick with Silver Star power at least through the end of 2015, if not longer.
Mercedes-Benz has cobbled together a behind-the-scenes video chronicling a photo shoot with two stars: the 451-horseepower and a Ducati 848 in matching white. Deviating from the behind-the-scenes template, this one is more like a series of rushes set to music. In addition to the mechanical eye candy, a pair of models feature prominently (as suggested by the screencap above). The action takes place on an Iberian runway, and you’ll find it .
This Midsize Cat Discreetly Blows Away its Competitors
The spotlight always shines on the superstars. These are the cars with the most powerful engines, largest wheels and most radical bodywork. In the midsize luxury sedan market, the brightest illumination falls on the flagships such as the , , , and . These four-doors not only frequently secure the cover shots and garner the lion’s share of publicity, they also carry hefty window stickers.
But take a look past the flared wheel arches, side skirts and rear decklid spoilers and drop down a big notch in price. There you will find the unexpected sleepers – vehicles that appear much like their standard siblings yet pack serious firepower under the hood and all the proper go-fast equipment to tame it.
While not everyone in the midsize luxury sedan segment offers a contender in this niche (Audi and Cadillac only muster six-cylinder power), the BMW 550i, Mercedes-Benz E550 4Matic and this Jaguar XF Supercharged we recently spent a week with are prime examples of four-doors ripe for the discreet enthusiast.
How The World’s Most Powerful Sport Utility Vehicle Fails At Being Absurd
Twenty years ago, sport utility vehicles were trucks. They had big, heavy frames, solid axles and low-range four-wheel drive. At best, they would accelerate to 60 miles per hour in under nine seconds and top out just over 100 mph. “Handling” simply meant that they could keep all four wheels firmly planted while circling an onramp.
Twenty years ago, only exotic sports cars boasted more than 500 horsepower. They accelerated to 60 mph in less than five seconds and could hit 150 mph if allowed enough space. Tuned suspensions, oversized brakes and exhaust systems that roared were expected, but supple rides were not.
Now, take a look at that brand-new silver sport utility vehicle in the image above. Beneath its leather-lined and sound-insulated cabin is a 550-horsepower twin-turbocharged V8, electronically controlled suspension, six-piston brakes and permanent all-wheel drive – it’s the most powerful SUV on the market.
The tall four-door will sprint more quickly than (and outrun) a 360 Modena Spider F1, plow through foot-deep snow drifts and take a family of five, with a ski boat in tow, to a lakeside Fourth of July picnic.
The Nissan Juke-R found some adventurous extracurriculars to take part in while in Dubai to race. said it would be making a film of the Juke-R taking on other street-legal supercars in the Dubai International Marina, but that race is meant to include a Mercedes/McLaren SLR-engined .
This appears to be something different, with the Juke-R going up against a LP560-4, a , and a . Lucas Ordonez, the first GTAcademy winner from 2008 is reportedly behind the wheel of the Juke-R. We don’t know the driving level of his competition, but we do know this: Nissan’s little beastie is really, really quick. Check out the (admittedly grainy) video to have your horizons expanded.
There are hundreds of aftermarket tuners out there, but few hold the type of street cred that does Veilside. Long known for making Japan’s greatest sportscars even greater, Veilside has now turned its attention to the .
Not the newest one, mind you, because it’s not out yet. Instead, Veilside has taken to the to unveil a conversion kit that turns the outgoing SL into something closer to the top-of-the-line SL65 AMG Black Series.
To do so, Veilside fitted the SL with a custom body kit that includes new bumpers front and rear, new hood, fenders, side skirts, and spoiler, all crafted from carbon fiber. The result is called the Black Fortune.
The folding roof mechanism present on the stock SL – but removed on the Black Series model – appears to remain in place, so the Veilside won’t encompass the kind of weight savings embodied by the factory special, but with only 300 examples of the kit to be offered at about $30,000 a pop, seeing one on the street should be about as rare a proposition.
Just when we were starting to think that there is nothing on television worth watching, we get our first look at Top Gear series 18. Beyond the jump is a 30 second teaser of the upcoming season, with a glimpse at more episodes filled with Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond.
The cars are there as well, including a very yellow , NASCAR Top Gear style and some crazy man who jumps out of a plane with a powered wing attached to his back. Oh, and it seems Jezza attacks a trailer park in a . Interesting. to watch the action-packed promo for yourself.
The Ultimate Passenger VesselFor Travel To Infinity And Beyond
Sometime before the end of this century, humans will travel to Mars. The longest manned journey ever attempted will take the explorers at least 34 million miles over the course of many months, at best. The vehicle necessary to support such an odyssey will need to be spacious, comfortable, technically advanced, incredibly safe and very powerful.
Before plotting the future spacecraft’s design, we suggest the engineers take a close look at the 2012 for ideas.
Of course, we don’t think the S63 is fit for interplanetary travel – micrometeorites and ultraviolet radiation would likely wreak havoc on its expensive and vogue matte finish Magno Platinum paint – but we do feel it is one of the most spacious and luxurious rocket ships that someone outside of a space agency can put in their personal hangar.
During our week with the AMG-tuned S-Class, its four wheels never left the surface of planet Earth, but we did load it up and make a long weekend trek to Palm Springs. How did this twin-turbocharged sedan handle the long outing and subsequent run into the mountains? Does it drive ponderously, or is the big Benz agile and athletic? Most importantly, what’s not to like with this two-and-one-half ton almighty giant?
Some things are at the fringe because they belong there. The tastes are too peculiar, the style too strange for the masses. But once in a while something emerges from the fringe into the mainstream because it deserves to be, because people learn to like it. Like matte paint finishes.
Long the purview of aftermarket tuners rejecting the glitz of the gloss, matte finishes are slowly finding their way onto automakers’ show stands and into dealership showrooms. broke new ground at the this week in announcing the availability of the new in flat grey, but the Korean automaker isn’t the only one offering the anti-shine treatment direct from the factory and displaying it on the floor of Cobo Hall.
Through its Designo program – a range of over-and-above options provided by AMG – offers a selection of matte finishes for some of its higher-end (though not necessarily AMG-tuned) models. The palette currently includes white (like the in the gallery below), flat silver (like the pictured above), dark grey and black, but is being expanded to include additional colors (and wider availability), starting with brown and hopefully extending to some of the shades and its sister brands have been .
The results may not be to everyone’s liking – and may not be well suited to every car – so don’t expect them to replace the go-to metallic paintjobs typically selected for such vehicles, but we’re glad to see this particular trend coming in out of the cold and into the showroom.
The Nissan Juke R is a gaggle of impressive numbers: 1,540 hours and 22 weeks of development time, 11 videos of its development, , 480 -derived horsepower and 428 pound-feet – and to that group we can add a 3.7-second 0-to-60 time and a top speed of 160 miles per hour. Yes, 3.7 seconds may be a second slower than the GT-R, but it’s only two-tenths of a second slower than the .
Speaking of the videos, the eleventh and last in the series has been released and it’s the final teaser before the real thing explodes . You’ll find it , and when you’re finished with that you can . We’ve included the after the jump as well, because who isn’t interested in a track shakedown of the crossover Beelzebub uses to take his little ‘bubs to soccer practice?
It’s the eve of press days at the , and has kicked off the week in fine style with the premiere of its . While the 60-year-old franchise has periodically undergone radical revisions, the sixth-generation should look familiar to anyone who has seen the outgoing model, but that doesn’t mean that Benz hasn’t tugged and pulled the SL every which way. While the general form looks very similar to the fifth-generation roadster, there are subtle tweaks everywhere, the most noticeable being the eagle’s-eye LED daytime running lamps.
As before, the two-seat roadster relies on a power folding hardtop, though the folding roof can now be had with Magic Sky Control, the trick bit of electrochromatic glass with variable opacity first offered on the . The original SL nomenclature stood for Sport and Lightweight, but in recent years, the latter descriptor hasn’t really applied to the big coupe. The 2013 model seeks to reclaim some of that featheriness with a new all-aluminum structure and body, and Mercedes says the new SL550 weighs about 275 pounds less than the exiting model.
A 12-percent bump in HP means that 60 miles per hour hits in just 4.5 seconds – the old car required 5.2 seconds.
Powered by Mercedes’ 4.6-liter twin-turbo V8, the SL550 delivers 429 horsepower at 5,250 rpm and a whopping 516 pound-feet of torque from 1,800 rpm. As before, that power is routed through a seven-speed auto to the rear wheels. Apart from its lightweight aluminum construction and downsized engine, Mercedes has made a few other concessions to greener motoring including standard stop/start. Despite this, the 32-percent swell in torque and 12-percent bump in horsepower means that 60 miles per hour hits in just 4.5 seconds – the old car required 5.2 seconds. Top speed is limited to 130 mph, and judging from the engine, it sounds like you’ll be able to say hello to the governor rather quickly.
Over the years, Mercedes has made many contributions to the art of year-round top-down motoring, with items like heated seats, HVAC systems with dedicated top-down modes, Airscarf, and so on. For 2013, the SL gains a new wiper blade system dubbed Magic Vision Control that streams wiper fluid along the blade to avoid overspray into the interior when the top is dropped. The entire wiper is heated as well.
The model seen here is the limited edition “Edition 1″ launch specification, which wears 19-inch AMG alloys, Designo leather, Airscarf, Harmon Kardon surround audio and available Designo crystal silver magno paintwork. We should know a bit more about pricing before the car arrives in dealers this spring.
Our spy photographers have caught the Mercedes-Benz CLC out for a little winter testing. Based on the same platform as the company’s A and B-Class vehicles, the CLC should offer buyers a smaller alternative to the Mercedes-Benz CLS. Rumor has it the CLC will be available in both front and all-wheel drive configurations, and AMG is already humming along on a high-performance version of the four-door. The CLC AMG is likely to produce somewhere between 300 and 340 horsepower when it debuts. Otherwise, buyers can expect to find two gasoline engines on the option sheet producing 121 and 154 horsepower, respectively.
Chances are Mercedes-Benz will also offer European buyers a pair of diesel options good for 107 and 134 horsepower. Regardless of engine choice, the CLC will likely put the power to its wheels via a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission.
Automakers need halo cars. They bring people into the showroom and demonstrate just what their engineers can do. Typically those range-topping vehicles come in the form of sports cars – think , , et al – but is reportedly taking another direction. That’s because these exotic supercars tend to sell in small numbers (almost by definition), while – for Mercedes-Benz – mid-size luxury sedans like the sell in much bigger numbers. As such, the Silver Star automaker is planning on making its next halo car a four-door sedan (of sorts).
A couple months ago, we brought you of Daimler’s plans to make a super-lightweight, carbon-fiber E-Class, and now further details have found their way into the bloggosphere. Dubbed the E Superlight, the sedan is tipped to share its footprint with the E-Class, its size with the and its price with the . For that, buyers would get a state-of-the-art sedan made from carbon fiber sitting at the very cutting edge of what Stuttgart’s finest are capable of achieving.
That’s right, the E Superlight isn’t a mere concept car: reports from overseas indicate that Daimler is actually planning on building it, with production earmarked to begin in 2015 and to come fully online by 2017. A hydrogen fuel cell is expected to provide the motivation at least in the beginning, but more conventional powertrains are also said to be in the mix. Once it’s made its point, Mercedes can lift the halo back where it usually sits, atop the replacement for the current supercar.
We have no intention of inviting vehement vehicular debates, but they always seem to pop up when discussing this segment of the market. That’s a good thing, because getting no reaction at all would be terrible when talking about cars that are so vital to driving enthusiasts. Our topic of the day is this refreshed eighth-generation , and while few changes are readily apparent, any packet of modifications to these bread-and-butter premium cars is worth investigating.
It’s been one heck of a year for the entry-level German executive class. Besides the addition of trims and a to the fourth-generation and the all-important launch of the sixth-generation , we’ve just driven the latest Audi A4 2.0 TFSI up, down and over various scenic Portuguese roads, and now more than ever, it is not to be ignored.
The will arrive in mid-2012 at the same time as this revamped A4, and having driven the thing, we can now say that all the mid-cycle touches have been nicely presented. While we were already big fans of the eighth-gen A4, the model’s reworked nose is handsome. Specifically, we note the more pronounced curvature to the hood, as well as a more planted stance. That’s a bit of visual trickery, not a wider track – stylists have emphasized the design’s horizontal lines up front, and they’ve added new head- and fog-light fixtures, along with larger air intakes down low. It appears that Audi has deliberately “nastied up” the sensible A4 a little to better prepare it for the new RS4 range-topper we expect next year. (That is if the rumors of there being no RS4 this time around are just rumors.)
