Archive for Mercedes Benz

Track lap comparisons between Formula One cars and lesser track and road cars have been done to death now (here is an older version of the McLaren F1 car versus Mercedes road car etc), and even this video is 2 years old but it’s one of the more fairly updated comparisons, as one of the cars that’s pit against the F1 car is the new W204 C-Class in C 350 form. The other two cars are the Mercedes-Benz CLK 63 AMG Black Series and the C-Class DTM race car. The Formula One car is the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes MP4-22 piloted by Fernando Alonso. Watch the action after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of VIDEO: McLaren MP4-22 against W204 C350, etc

Mercedes-Benz has officially announced details of the new W212’s AMG Sports Package, sort of a mid-way between a regular E and an E AMG, much like BMW’s M Sport packages. The W212’s AMG bodykit includes an AMG bumper with large cooling air intakes, AMG side skirts and an AMG rear bumper.

Read more about the new W212 AMG package after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of New AMG Sports Package for W212 E-Class

The original W212 rear-end

Theophilus Chin’s take on the W212’s rear end

The new W212 E-Class looks pretty good – it has a strong and athletic poise especially when equipped with the AMG bumper, but for alot of people these good vibes end when they have a look at the rear, which kind of gives me the feeling their designers ran out of ideas and swiped the rear lights of the B-Class and just slapped it in. I personally think something like a cross between the new W204 C-Class and the now old W211’s rear end would look better. Theophilus Chin got to work straight away and whipped something up, and here is the result. What do you think?

Here are more low resolution images of the new 2010 Mercedes-Benz E-Class. This new W212 E-Class replaces the W211 currently sold in Malaysia, and finally retires the Kompressor engine in the base model, replacing it with one that is turbocharged and direct injected. I’m in the midst of uploading the full high-resolution gallery right now, but for the moment please enjoy this low-res gallery that made its appearance on the internet shortly before the high-res ones were released officially in the Daimler Global Media Site.

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LEAKED: 2010 Mercedes-Benz E-Class (W212) Brochures

Click here to read the rest of W212 Mercedes-Benz E-Class low-res gallery

A brochure of the new W212 2010 Mercedes-Benz E-Class has been scanned and let loose onto the internet, so here’s a preview of the next generation de-facto communiting choice for businessmen in Malaysia. Styling-wise, this new edition completes the E-Class design’s transformation from curvy bulk into a new sportier, edgier and more angular design. The trademark quad oval headlamps are now square-ish, much like the Lexus GS.

Above is a size comparison chart between the new W212 and the model it replaces as well as its competitiors, the Audi A6 and the BMW 5-Series. The A6 is clearly the longest and widest of the lot while remaining lowest as well, but it does not have the longest wheelbase. The new W212 is longer, wider and lower than the W211 so it should prove to have a sportier stance as well as be more stable on the road. It’s wheelbase has also grown by 16mm.

The image at the beginning of this story is the standard model with the regular foglamps, of which design reminds you of what Brabus usually does to a Mercedes foglamp, so they’ll probably have to think of something else with this E-Class! Now this image above shows us what we saw earlier in the initial batch of leaked shots, LED daytime driving lights in place of where the foglamps are. They are arranged in some sort of L shape.

This is the version with the AMG bodykit, also featuring the LED driving lights. You can see the differences in the front bumper, it has a frowney shape to its central air intake compared to the regular E-Class bumper’s smiley air intake. The sideskirt also bulges out a little towards the rear wheel on the AMG car.

The new W212 E-Class is quite a handsome and aggressive car from the front but when you get to the rear, I don’t know about you but my first thoughts were “fail”. The integrated exhausts tailpipes are a nice touch but as this photo is the E 500, it’s not known at this point whether the base models like the new E 200 CGI will get a similiar design.

The interior is quite clearly an evolution of the W204 C-Class’s interior. The sexy curved and thin wood panels of the W211’s interior is now gone, and replaced by thick and flat pieces of wood on a dash design that has also gone all angular like the car’s exterior. I don’t know, the interior kinda looks like it was lifted from a luxury truck or SUV rather than a Mercedes-Benz, so I really prefer the old W211’s interior. Ah well, all the better for people who plan to pick up a pre-owned W211 facelift in the future.

The leaked spec sheets reveal the new engine range for the W212 E-Class. Gone is the familiar E 200 K moniker, instead replacing it is the new E 200 CGI. The brochure and spec sheets actually doesn’t really reveal what kind of forced induction the new 1.8 liter engine uses, but just looking at the torque curve will tell you that it’s a new quick-spooling turbocharger, so now we can finally bid goodbye to the Kompresser supercharger of the W210 and W211. The new E 200 CGI’s 1.8 liter turbocharged engine also has direct injection and puts out 181bhp at 5,250rpm as well as 270Nm of torque between 1,800 to 4,200rpm. This is a very decent amount and beats the hell out of the 523i’s 230Nm, plus it kicks in at a very low RPM too. 0 to 100km/h takes 8.7 seconds, while the top speed is 235km/h.

The new 1.8 liter turbocharged direct injection engine also comes in E 250 CGI guise. The V6-powered E 230 is now missing from the line-up. In E 250 CGI form, the engine produces 201hp at 5,250 and 310Nm of torque between 2,000 to 4,500rpm. 0 to 100km/h takes 7.9 seconds, while the top speed is a little higher at 245km/h. The E 250 CGI also has wider tyres in 225/55R16 size compared to the E 200 CGI’s 205/60R16 tyres.

Click for enlarged image

Other engine options include a V6 and a V8 in the E 350 CGI and the E 500 respectively. These models come with either rear wheel drive or optional 4MATIC all-wheel drive. The E 280 seems missing, but may only be gone in the originating country of this leaked brochure. The E 350 CGI’s 3.5 liter V6 puts out 288hp at 6,400rpm and an impressive 365Nm of torque at 3,000rpm, thanks to its direct injection technology. The E 350 4MATIC’s engine has different power figures – 268hp at 6,000rpm and 350Nm of torque between 2,400 to 5,000rpm, an impressively wide peak torque spread for a normally aspirated engine. The 5.5 liter V8-powered E 500 and E 500 4MATIC produce 382 horsepower at 6,000rpm and 530Nm of torque between 2,800 rpm to 4,800rpm.

There are a few oil burners to choose from, ranging from the E 200 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY all the way up to a E 350 CDI BlueTEC. There is also a 4MATIC version of the E 350 CDI. The inline-4 diesels in the E 200 CDI, E 200 CDI and the E 250 CDI are the new 2.1 liter OM651 diesel engine that was unveiled recently. The E 200 CDI puts out 134hp between 3,000 to 4,600rpm and 330Nm of torque between 1,600 to 2,800rpm. The E 220 CDI does 167hp between 3,000 to 4,200rpm and 400Nm of torque between 1,400 to 2,800rpm. The 201hp E 250 CDI puts out a massive 500Nm from 1,600rpm all the way to 1,800rpm.

Click for enlarged image

The sole V6 turbodiesel option is the 3.0 liter E 350 CDI engine which has three power outputs in three different variants. The E 350 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY gets 228hp at 3,800rpm and 540Nm of torque between 1,600rpm and 2,400rpm, while the E 350 BlueTEC has less power – only 208hp at 3,400rpm but the same 540Nm of torque between 1,600 to 2,600rpm. Finally, the all-wheel drive E 350 CDI 4MATIC gets 221hp at 3,800rpm and 540Nm of torque between 1,600 to 2,400rpm. These numbers by the 3.0 V6 turbo diesel are all very close to the highest power output of the 2.1 liter twin turbocharged diesel, which is what makes the latter engine very special. What it lacks is the smooth silky refinement and sound of a V6.

Please look after the jump for a photo gallery containing the scanned brochures. It reveals a few colour options as well as the different interior colour schemes.

Click here to read the rest of LEAKED: 2010 Mercedes-Benz E-Class (W212) brochures with detailed specification sheets!

At one point it was thought that the SLR Roadster 722 S was the last product to come out of the partnership between Mercedes-Benz and McLaren, but there’s now a new “crowning glory” to the SLR range, the SLR Stirling Moss.

0 to 100km/h will take only 3.5 seconds thanks to its supercharged V8 engine. The spartan SLR Stirling Moss has no roof or side windows, just two wind deflectors a couple of cm in height to protect the driver and passenger from the airflow. The air scoops integrated into the bodywork also double up as rollover bars in case something undesirable happens.

This is one expensive track car paying homage to the old 300 SLR, and is only limited to 75 units to be produced between June 2009 to December 2009. You’ll have to fork out 750,000 Euros for it. wow!!!

You will find a hi-res gallery and a video after the jump.

Click here to read the rest of McLaren Mercedes SLR Stirling Moss Speedster

Click to enlarge image

The 2009 Mercedes-Benz S-Class will debut an enhancement to the vehicle’s COMAND navigation and entertainment system called SPLITVIEW. Yes, you got it right, it’s going to appear in a production car. Basically, the COMAND 8 inch LCD screen at the front will be able to display two different screens depending on the angle you are viewing it from.

For example, the driver sitting on the left (in a left hand drive car) will be able to view a screen displaying GPS navigation maps and instructions while the front passenger viewing the screen from the right will be able to watch a DVD. To prevent distracting the driver, the passenger can use a supplied pair of headphones for the DVD’s audio.

This is achieved by a technique that places pixels adjacent to each other, then using a filter that divides the image in such a way that only certain pixels can be seen depending on the viewing angle.

What about the rear passengers you say? Won’t they be looking at something a little jumbled up when viewing straight on? Well, I suppose SPLITVIEW is going to be a high-end specification and in cars that will have it available, the rear passengers could most likely have their own COMAND display integrated into the backs of the front passenger seats.

Some are going the way of the electric car, and some are going the way of the fuel cell. Some are doing both. Mercedes-Benz has decided to take it up a notch and do three at once – an electric vehicle, an extended range electric vehicle and a fuel cell vehicle. When January 2009 rolls around, the 2009 Detroit Motor Show will bring us the new Mercedes-Benz Concept BlueZero, which comes in 3 variants.

The first variant is the Concept BlueZero E-Cell. It’s powered by an electric motor and a lithium ion battery that supports plug-in charging that give you 100km of maximum range in 2 hours of charging. That’s going to be an issue in Europe – city driving will be fine but what about cross country tours across the vast European continent?

That’s where the BlueZero E-Plus Cell comes in. It’s an extended range electric vehicle, which means it has an internal combustion engine installed at the back that burns through regular fuel not to power the wheels but to generate electricity to recharge the batteries. This takes the range up to 600km, and you can get more just by topping up the fuel.

Finally you have the BlueZero F-Cell, which uses a fuel cell that produces electricity from hydrogen, something Stuttgart have already been dabbling in in the past.

Look at more images of the Mercedes-Benz Concept BlueZero after the jump.

Source

Click here to read the rest of Mercedes-Benz Concept BlueZero to tackle alternative fuels in 3 different ways, sort of

Mercedes-Benz may be revisiting the 2000 Mercedes-Benz Vision SLA Concept, a 7 year old concept that portrayed a small, compact and fun two-seater roadster.

At that time the concept was to remain a concept because Mercedes-Benz had no economical way of building the car. Something as small as that would translate into a small price tag and small profit margins, and the A-Class and B-Class small car platform could not be used because of its sandwich construction, which meant it would be too tall to make something like a roadster.

Now that Mercedes-Benz is going for a new platform that’s much more flexible for the next generation A-Class and B-Class, it opens up new possibilities for something like the Vision SLA to be build. Going down the vehicle segments in terms of size seems to make the most sense right now even for premium carmakers.

Even BMW is said to be working on a Z2 roadster based on the 1-Series chassis which would end up being a head-on competitor to this new production SLA-Class. But still, for those who want to have a bit of fun during these troubled times, are there going to be many people willing to fork out for the “German luxury premium” on the car’s price tag when you can have all the qualities that make a good roadster in the Mazda MX-5?

Look after the jump for photos of the SLA Concept from the year 2000.

Click here to read the rest of Mercedes-Benz SLA to make it into production?

Three low-resolution official photos of next year’s 2010 Mercedes-Benz E-Class have been leaked out onto the internet. The frontal shot of the W212 E-Class reveals a design that is more of an evolution of the W211 Facelift when you look at the oversized pointy shield grille and the shape of the front bumper, but the headlamps have departed from the ‘classic’ E-Class round shape and are now more like the Lexus GS. Also new are daylight running lights in the form of a horizontal strip of LEDs.

The side profile features a sleek character line and it slopes upwards from the front to the back. There is a very clear family resemblance with this new side profile and that of the current generation S-Class and the W204 C-Class.

The rear end is just bad. It kinda looks like someone took the taillamps of the B-Class and slapped it onto the butt of a Nissan Sylphy. Of course, this style of tail lamps aren’t exactly new on the E-Class. The W210 had it and while the W211 sedan changed to a rather nice design that flanked the bootlid nicely, the W211 stationwagon kept the W210-style of tail lamps. Now it’s back on the W212 sedan again! But who knows, it may look better in real life. The integrated tailpipes are a nice touch though.

Expect a full reveal of the W212 E-Class at the 2009 Geneva Motor Show.