2004 Mercedes-benz Clk500 Cabriolet on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Boston bombers were tracked using Mercedes mbrace [w/video]

We now know Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the two brothers said to be behind the Boston Marathon bombings, planned to head for New York City to detonate more improvised explosive devices. As it turns out, that plan was foiled by the quick thinking of one Mercedes-Benz owner, diligent police work and the Mercedes-Benz mbrace system. When the brothers carjacked a 26-year-old Chinese entrepreneur identified only as "Danny," they didn't realize his Mercedes-Benz M-Class was equipped with the mbrace system, which can call for help in the event of an accident or track the vehicle in the event of a theft.
According to reports, the Tsarnaev brothers held Danny hostage for nearly 90 minutes while they drove around Boston forming a plan until they had to stop for fuel. When one of the brothers went inside to pay, the other put his gun down for a moment. Danny took the opportunity to unlatch his seat belt, open the door and run to another nearby gas station, where he told the owner to call the police.
When police arrived, they used the mbrace system to track the SUV after receiving Danny's permission, and it wasn't long before a shootout between police and the brothers ensued. When it was over, the eldest brother lay dead in the street. For more on the story, view the video report available below.

Here's how Detroit is selling more luxury vehicles than Germany and Japan

Now there's an attention-grabbing headline, eh? Although the answer to the riddle - pickup trucks and SUVs - might be somehow deflating, the numbers involved deserve a going over. According to TrueCar's figures (click on the table to enlarge), six of the year's ten best-selling vehicles in the US that sell for a transaction price above $50,000 are body-on-frame, and the Mercedes-Benz E-Class is the only foreigner to crack the top five. Every enthusiast knows that pickup trucks are 'Murica's most popular vehicle by a colossal margin, and there have been plenty of reports about the popularity of luxuriously appointed trucks and SUVs, but compare these figures from TrueCar: 70 percent of Chevrolet Tahoe sales have a transaction price above $50K, and The Bowtie is expected to make $3.9 billion in revenue on 66,945 predicted high-dollar sales; 95.1 percent of E-Class sales break $50K, so the German company will make $4.0 billion on 67,006 predicted sales in that pricing sphere. It's about the only time you'll see the Tahoe ranked right next to Mercedes' bread-and-butter sedan. Ram is ahead of those two with $4.2B coming from $50K-plus sales. The Ford F-Series does almost as much revenue as the next three combined, with an expected $10.8 billion coming from sales of trucks over $50K - more than a quarter of the model's total sales, when a base F-150 can be had for about $26,000. Yes, the Germans make a lot more money on fewer sales, but considering the comparison, the bottom line isn't too troubled by such facts. Weighing like-for-like, the full-size Ford walks it in every category; elsewhere, the Chevrolet Silverado outsells the Ram, but the Ram outsells the Chevy by 6.7 percent above $50K. And for all the flak GMC takes over swapping out grilles, the Sierra also outsells the Chevy in the well-appointed segment, 16.1 percent of sales versus 11 percent – the Professional Grade brand is a huge profit center for The General. You'll find more info in the TrueCar press release below. TrueCar finds pickup trucks far outsell premium brands among top 10 vehicles over $50,000 Ford F-Series pickup sales over $50,000 surpass combined BMW 3, 5, 7 Series luxury car sales SANTA MONICA, Calif. (December 10, 2014) - TrueCar, Inc., the negotiation-free car buying and selling platform, finds mainstream pickup trucks and sport-utility vehicles dominate U.S.

2015 Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG Coupe

Conventional wisdom would dictate that adding more power and several key performance enhancements to an already very good car, like the 2015 Mercedes-Benz S550 Coupe, will end up equaling an even better car. In the case of the 2015 Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG Coupe, conventional wisdom sort of applies, but perhaps not as much as we'd have initially guessed. We'll get into the nitty gritty details in just a moment, but here's the most immediate takeaway we had in our minds as we walked away from this super coupe: The S63 AMG is excellent, but so is the slightly more mundane S550 Coupe on which it is based, and which is priced some $41,000 less expensive than its more powerful sibling. Chew on those figures while we examine what differentiates the two S-Class Coupes. Drive Notes As expected, the single greatest highlight of the 2015 S63 Coupe is its engine. As a powerplant, it's a gem. As a hand-built engineering exercise, its 577 horsepower and 664 pound-feet of torque are just as impressive in real life as they sound when recited from stat sheets. Not that the old CL63 AMG was lacking in power, but the new S63 AMG Coupe boasts 41 more horses and 74 more lb-ft than the outgoing engine. The run to 60 miles per hour takes a scant 3.9 seconds, according to M-B, aided in no small part by the car's 4Matic all-wheel-drive system and other assorted electronic brains deciding where, exactly, all those ponies should be sent. The rear-biased system is tuned to send two-thirds of the engine's power to the rear wheels in a bid to make the car feel more like what performance-minded drivers expect. Top speed is electronically limited to 186 miles per hour, which is plenty fast enough, even in the days of 200-plus-mph sedans from M-B's former corporate cousin Dodge. We didn't get anywhere near the car's maximum velocity, but our brief trips into triple-digit territory were quiet, comfortable and completely free of drama. The seven-speed automatic gearbox responds quickly to requests of your right foot, but the steering wheel-mounted paddles don't change gears as quickly as we'd like when in Manual mode. Controlled Efficiency (which we'd call Comfort) maximizes efficiency, keeping the transmission in higher gears and shifting earlier than when in Sport mode, and we didn't find much fault with the computer's shifting algorithms in either setting.