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Mercedes-Petronas AMG W04 launched to little fanfare, lots of pressure [w/video]

No indoor cocktail hour for the launch of the W04, the newest chassis built by the Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One team. Instead, Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton spent a morning in photo and video sessions at the track in Jerez, Spain then paused a moment to introduce the car. The team will want the W04 to demonstrate the World Championship credentials of the team personnel and one of the team drivers, instead of the mostly humble performances we've seen over the past three years.
The W04 has been fitted with a new five-element front wing, pushrod front and pull-rod rear suspension, a second-generation Coanda exhaust and an "aggressively packaged" rear end. A small vanity panel, à la Infiniti Red Bull's RB9, covers the stepped nose.
Team principal Ross Brawn has called it "a clear step forward in design and detail sophistication," but as much as we truly respect Brawn's abilities and achievements, we heard him say similar things about the updated W03 last year before almost every race weekend from about mid-season. We really hope he's right this time, and so does the team's newest driver, Lewis Hamilton. We'll do our best to ignore the parallels of the Mercedes F1 team having signed a sponsorship deal with Blackberry, another company trying to find its way back to the top and still struggling, and just point you to the video below of the W04 in action.

2014 Mercedes S-Class priced lower from $92,900*

The massively overhauled 2014 Mercedes-Benz S-Class will start at $92,900, not including a $925 destination fee, when it arrives at US dealers in October. That's a 2.8-percent drop over the 2013 S-Class, although Mercedes is fast to point out that a drop in price doesn't equate with a drop in equipment for the executive sedan.
Besides an extra 20 horsepower from the 4.6-liter, biturbocharged V8, the S550 sports a standard panoramic sunroof, keyless start, a rear-view camera and LED headlights, taillights and interior lights. Adding the German manufacturer's 4Matic all-wheel-drive system bumps the S550's price up to $95,900.
If the S550 doesn't quite cut the mustard, you can wait until November, at which point Mercedes will quite happily sell you the new S63 AMG 4Matic for $139,500. Power is also up on the S63, from a max of 563 ponies with an AMG Performance Package to 577 horsepower as standard on the 2014 model.

2014 Mercedes SL and SLK add small expansion to Takata airbag recall

Mercedes-Benz is the latest automaker to be affected by Takata's massive airbag recall. The company has announced a voluntary recall campaign on a small number of model-year 2014 SLK- and SL-Class roadsters.
In Mercedes' case, 300 vehicles are affected, 200 of which are in the hands of customers. According to spokesperson Donna Boland, the affected roadsters were built between March and April of this year.
The issue, which is apparently the fault of one of Takata's subcontractors, rests with some improperly installed fasteners, which could keep the airbag from performing the way it's supposed to. According to Boland, Mercedes isn't sure what, if any, injuries the recalled airbags could cause, but simply claims there's an increased risk in these particular vehicles. There's been no reported instances of the faulty airbags deploying on a customer and the original issue was found in a production test.