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Mercedes says it's tops in luxury sales for 2012, not BMW

It turns out that Mercedes-Benz North America has legitimate claim to being the top selling luxury nameplate in the US in 2012.
While sources such as Autodata had put BMW in the top spot, registration data from R.L. Polk shows that Mercedes customers registering new vehicles topped the Bavarian automaker in the most recent calendar year. Polk says Benz posted 274,123 registrations, compared with BMW's 268,498.
In terms of sales posted, BMW had bested Benz 281,460 to 274,134. But sales are recorded somewhat inconsistently from automaker to automaker. Some book the sales as soon as they are shipped from factory to dealer. There is perennial gamesmanship between the two German rivals, and the sales numbers suggest that BMW pushed out some extra sheetmetal to dealers in the last four weeks of the year.

Brabus 800 Roadster is a power-mad aristocrat

If we're being completely honest, we haven't exactly been in love with the aesthetics of the sixth-generation Mercedes-Benz SL-Class. It's mostly a front-end issue, with its glowering eagle-eye headlamps and upright, dinner-plate-sized Three-Pointed Star coming across to us as overwrought. That's particularly troublesome for a roadster whose history has of the most elegant designs of all time in its back catalog. Somehow, the new R231 generation's brash visuals seem more at home on this Brabus 800 Roadster to us.
That's probably because the high-dollar German tuner has turned up the wick on the SL's visuals even further, with carbon fiber bodywork, a more aggressive aero kit, matte hood scoop and complex two-finish wheels. It's all-the-way committed to its brashness, in other words - and justifiably so. Anything with 800 horsepower and 1,047 pound-feet of torque has earned the right to look however it wants, right?
Brabus started with the SL65 and its not-exactly-underpowered 6.0-liter twin-turbo V12, and went to town, fitting their own turbocharger and intercooler system, along with a less-restrictive exhaust system with driver-selectable sound levels and new engine electronics. The result is a 3.7-second 0-62 mph time, an electronically limited top whack of 217 mph... and one seriously compromised toupée.

Mercedes teases massive new Maybach coupe

Mercedes-Benz hasn't done a lot with its Maybach brand over the last few years. After killing the slow-selling standalone Maybach line, the badge sat unused, until MB slapped it on a luxed-out S600. But today, Mercedes posted a teaser of a new, two-door Maybach on its social media channels. Immediately given away by the Maybach badge on the C-pillar (and possibly one on the nose), we could be looking at a modern-day Exelero – a successor to Maybach's last coupe, a one-off, 700-horsepower rocket ship that deserved all the Darth Vader's car cliches – capable of extremely high speeds and stunning comfort. Everything from the long hood (better to accommodate some monstrous V12 engine) to the windshield's aggressive rake, to the absurdly long tail, signals a 200-mile-per-hour-plus top speed for this concept. And yes, we're thinking this is a concept. Kick the exposure way up with Photoshop and you can see that the side mirrors are too slim to actually function as normal mirrors – they're almost certainly cameras. Other details? Whatever Mercedes calls its new Maybach, it's going to be huge. According to the caption accompanying the teaser, this car is six meters (19.6 feet) long – that's over three feet longer than an S-Class Coupe and nearly four feet longer than a Bentley Continental GT. Like we said, it's enormous. And that's about all we know. Mercedes dropped this teaser out of the blue, nearly two months before the auto show season kicks off in Paris. It's possible the company could continue to tease out a new Maybach concept until early October, but more likely, we'll see an online debut ahead of the Paris show. Stay tuned. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Image Credit: Mercedes-Benz Facebook Paris Motor Show Maybach Mercedes-Benz Coupe Concept Cars Performance 2016 paris motor show mercedes-maybach