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September 16, 2010
E-Class Ranger
By Jen Dunnaway
Editor
Man, people will graft anything onto a Ranger pickup. I remember being so stoked about the round-headlight E-Class when it first came out when I was in college, but I don’t know if I’d want one in Camino’d form. What do you think–would you drive it?
September 2, 2010
July 28, 2010
Matte Purple Mercedes SLS AMG
By Rob Einaudi
Editor-in-Chief
Do you like it? I think it looks silly…
July 8, 2010
Mercedes Art Car Limo Provides Rolling Parts Bin For Your 50′s Restoration
By Jen Dunnaway
Editor
This three-axled Mercedes limo is much more than just a meth-addict’s junkpile–nope, this is the work of a truly crazy person, on par with great art cars like Carthedral. It’s also an otherworldly grab-bag of trim and accessories from countless postwar classics. Get this rig just for the rare bits and pieces it comes with–if you don’t, the scrappers will! Check out the eBay auction here, via Hooniverse.
July 1, 2010
Car Guys Who Love Their Dogs This Much
By Jen Dunnaway
Editor
Moki, the incredibly peaceful and potato-like shop dog at NorthWest Auto Salon, now has this luxurious custom Mercedes dog bed to lounge in when cruising in Blake’s CL. Blake had the piece made to his specs by TopStitch Upholstery in Los Angeles. Nice!
May 20, 2010
The Best New Sports Cars for $75k or Less
By Mike Musto
RideLust.com
If you’ve been following this series you’ll know that we’ve already covered the best new sports cars for $25k or Less and the best new sports cars for $50k or less. Well, it’s now time to bump up into the next tax bracket and find out what is out there for $75k or less. This is truly interesting category as we’re right on the fringe of the entering exotic car territory. The list as it stands may in fact surprise you as there are a few cars here that you may not have thought. One reason is they may have two to many doors, the other is that they’re all pretty damn expensive. Either way though, presented here for you are 5 great sports cars that can be had for $75k or Less. Oh yea… and just for the fun of it I figured I’d throw in some video so could see what I mean.
See the full list over at Ridelust.com.
April 20, 2010
Heaven, Hell or Hyundai
By Sam Barer
Sound Classics
I wrote here a few months ago about my wife’s decision to replace her 1998 Olds Intrigue. I detailed my grand plan to give her the 2006 Toyota Avalon while I procured myself a slightly used Mercedes S550 as a new daily driver.
The interesting thing about the Mercedes S550 is that, without expensive and rarely-equipped options, it offers fewer bells and whistles than a minivan of half the price. Consequently, it was near impossible to find one with adaptive laser-guided cruise control and a back-up camera, at least one with a reasonable number of miles that wasn’t being sold by a dealer at a typical narcotics kingpin’s profit margin. I did finally find a low-mileds 2008 S600 (the model with all the bells and whistles as standard, powered by the fire-breathing bi-turbo V12 and usually purchased new by professional athletes and CEOs) offered at a sell-it-today price of $72,000, but getting it to my door and licensing it would have put it at $80,000. Still, at nine in the morning on one beautiful day I had the deal ready to go.
It’s funny how spouses have the ability to bring us back to ground-level. My wife reminded me that no matter how far under-value I could buy the S600, I was making a poor financial decision. She also pointed to the other cars in the garage and asked if I really needed another expensive car for myself. This was the point when I again got to swallow hard and use my signature line “you’re right, I’m wrong, I’m sorry, I’ll change!”
It had taken me months to get to nearly buying the S600, but thanks to my wife’s decisive nature, by 5pm that night she was at Titus-Will Hyundai signing for a brand new 2010 Genesis 4.6 Sedan–for her! A Hyundai? On my property? What the hell?
April 15, 2010
Malmsheim Airport
By Rob Einaudi
Editor-in-Chief
So after a day and a half of looking at Mercedes cars and talking about their design, we finally got to drive them. Mercedes took us out to Malmsheim Airport, which they lease for testing and demonstration purposes. We had the opportunity to take several of their cars on handling course, got to ride along for a demonstration of their “Pre-Safe” braking system braking system (check out my video of the demo on StreetFire), and finally they turned us loose on the back roads and the Autobahn.
Sadly, the new Gullwing was not available to test. And I just missed snagging the keys to the E63 AMG (you can read my friend Muamer’s take on this beast at Benz Insider). So I had to “settle” for a bright red SL 500 Roadster.
We don’t get this one over here. I think Mercedes understands that we Americans love our horsepower, so they send over the 382 hp SL 550. But the 302 hp V8 was plenty for this car. Not tire melting or anything, but definitely a solid and smooth performer.
In general it seems that all Mercedes cars are incredibly well-engineered and sorted out. Personally, I prefer my cars to be a bit more rude and crude. But it’s hard to complain when driving such nicely composed vehicles, and I really enjoyed taking the gorgeous red roadster on the back roads of Germany. Before going back to the hotel I also got a chance to drive the 231 hp turbocharged V6 diesel E350 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY Coupe. Definitely the nicest diesel I’ve ever driven, and it was smooth as hell at 200 kph on the Autobahn.
Overall, the whole experience was a blast (I’m not even gonna brag about all the food and wine I got to consume along the way). Thanks to the great folks in Stuttgart for having me out. Hope I can do it again some time!
April 13, 2010
Mercedes-Benz Museum
By Rob Einaudi
Editor-in-Chief
Last week I spent a few days in Stuttgart, Germany, hanging out with the good folks at Mercedes-Benz. My first stop was the Mercedes-Benz Museum, constructed at considerable expense in 2006. If you ever find yourself in southern Germany, I would definitely recommend stopping by. The architecture is pretty amazing (check out the cool elevators zipping up and down on the pic below), but given the fact that I didn’t have too much time, I mostly focused on the cars. You can see all the pics I shot in our events section, but I’ve posted a few highlights (with links to video!) after the jump.
March 29, 2010
Retrosexual: SLS GT3 Race Car
By Ben Schaffer
The Real JDM
When I first saw the new SLS Mercedes I didn’t know quite what to think. If I’m honest with myself, it was one of those cars that I was unimpressed with at first glance and then with each new look it grew on me. Regardless of the SLS growing on me, I never really thought about it in the context of a race car. So when I saw the news that Mercedes was building a race version SLS I couldn’t even begin to imagine what to expect.
The SLS is obviously a very retro influenced car to begin with, paying homage to the classic 300SL gullwing. Most logic would say that mishmashing modern racing aerodynamic design on a retro influenced car would lead to massive style clash and lost identity. Yet the SLS GT3 in my opinion turned out to be extremely sexy! So sexy that it made me make up a new word to describe it, retrosexual. I think you would agree… See more pics at The Real JDM
