53MercOwner

Mercedes GL gets a V12 engine transplant by MKB Bill Harrah, the casino magnate and car collector, created a Jerrari, a 1970's Jeep Wagoneer with a V12 Ferrari engine. It is on view at the Harrah car collection in Reno, Nevada.

Maybach gets a day of reckoning on July 1st On another note, the wealthiest family in Washington DC drives an R-class.

Maybach gets a day of reckoning on July 1st There was also the fact that the car was introduced in unstable economic times (new data showing that the recession really started back in 2006) and the design of the vehicle assumes that the extrordinarily wealthy are all ostentacious is simplistic. Mercedes never seems to learn their lesson - the W140, as great as it was, alost drove a number of US dealers under with its attempt to move upmarket away from Lexus and Infinity. Daimler went on a shopping spree of companies in the 80's and had to divorce themselves afterwards. Then what do they do a decade later? Buy Chrysler. The Maybach was a cynical attempt to compete against BMW (Rolls) and VW (Bentley). Well made and comfortable the Maybach might have been, there's no getting around its euro-trash looks.

All-new 2011 BMW X3 revealed - 210 hi-res photos and video Everything looks fine enough but the shame of it is that everything was so predictable. Looks like a mini-X5 from the outside and the interior is thematically down-the-line with the rest of their products. With the Porsche Panamera's new interor showing what new directions are possible....

2011 Porsche Panamera announced with brake energy recuperation system Makes want to take delivery of one and vacation in Lugano!

Mercedes launches new slogan: The best or nothing The original slogan was "Das Beste Oder Nicht" and was also used both as internal corporate credo as well as for marketing purposes. It then morphed into "The Best for our Customers" at the beginning of Merc's slide into products not purely based on engineering and manufacturing excellence (pushed by the unfortunately poor sales of the brilliant 1990 S-class (W140)). "Engineered like no other car in the world" speaks to an intelligent mind-set and I wish they would revive it.

Mercedes Automated Driving Technology previews Future Driver Assistance systems A friend sat next to the lead software engineer from Toyota on a US flight. He said that they could basically make the cars automonous but that there is too much desire for control from drivers. Studies have shown that if automated freeways were installed, the accident rate would drop by a huge factor but if an accident did occur, the liablity would easily placed on the authorities in charge of the system instead of the individual driver.

2011 Audi A7 spied in Germany - clearest photos yet Apparently the previous A8 was heading towards a sport-back configuration but Ferdinand Piech disapproved due to sales concerns. This is heading more towards the 5-Series GT, not the CLS. I'll take one.

Hummer Shut Down Begins After No Buyer Found These monsters were never of any real world value except to project a militaristic and self-centered attitude that has no place in decent society.

BMW M5 F10 Renderings are Scarily Convincing The major criticsm of the previous M5 was its overly technical nature detracted from the driving pleasure. Hopefully BMW will get back to its roots of an elegant, straight-forward machine. The Merc E63 is sensational, however, and it will take a lot to beat it.