We Finance!!! 2005 Mercedes-benz Clk500 Convertible Auto Wood X Enon Harman/kar on 2040-cars

Auto blog

New Mercedes-Benz pickup to be called GLT?

The Mercedes-Benz pickup will allegedly be called the GLT, and it won't be "a fat cowboy truck." That's according to the head of MB's truck project, former AMG boss Volker Mornhinweg, quoted by Car. We already knew that Mercedes would be teaming up with Renault-Nissan for its double-cab pickup, but until Car sat down with Mornhinweg, we were unsure of how the vehicle would be targeted. Aside from being neither fat nor cowboy like, the exec shed some light on the German brand's mindset behind the new truck. "We are not going to develop a fat cowboy truck for North America. After all, the big three – Ford, GM/GMC and Ram – already own about 90 percent of that market which typically absorbs in excess of two million units per year," Mornhinweg told Car. "In this cutthroat environment, newcomers like us would invariably fight an arduous uphill battle. That's why our focus is on a smaller and lighter pick-up truck which is already perceived as premium product in South America, Africa and the Middle East." While Mornhinweg wasn't the one to let slip on the new Mercedes truck's name, Car reports that it will wear the GLT badge. There's no mention of where the publication came up with that title, though, aside from "rumors." We've reached out to Mercedes-Benz for comment on the truck's name, and should they get back to us, we'll be sure to update this post. Related Video: News Source: CarImage Credit: Mercedes-Benz Vans Mercedes-Benz Truck

The most or nothing: Mercedes-Maybach S650 Cabriolet pushes the luxury limits

After the introduction of the Mercedes-AMG GT Roadster at the Paris Motor Show this fall, we informed you that Mercedes-Benz has a convertible conundrum, a surplus of drop-tops that seemingly threatens to self-cannibalize within the brand's ever-proliferating lineup. Benz's head of design, Gorden Wagener, who spends much of his time in Southern California, argues it's not a problem: Each convertible, in its ideal construction, would intrinsically vanquish any issues. "The bad is the enemy of the good," he said, not exactly quoting Nietzsche. Now, the three-pointed star brand has upped the top-down ante, with the unveiling this week at the Los Angeles auto show of the Mercedes-Maybach S650 Cabriolet, a vehicle so opulent, it sits in price and position atop the uber-luxury brand's current top-of-the-line offering, the $247,900 Mercedes-AMG S65 Cabriolet. View 24 Photos "Mercedes-AMG is our performance brand so it's all about performance stuff," says Wagener in a one-on-one interview on the roof of a Beverly Hills mansion just before the new car is unveiled. "Of course, Maybach has power, too, but it's the ultimate in luxury. So it's more on that side. And for me in the interior, it's the haute couture of the automobile, so we tried to up that a little more with details. And on the exterior, it's a more superb appearance up front, more chrome, more rich, and of course we tried to up that branding even more. The S-Class is the best car in the world, we consider, I always thought we could raise the Mercedes brand. And it's the same with the S convertible." Why does Mercedes-Benz need a flagship atop its flagship? Because, when climbing the mountain of automotive luxury there is always the customer who, when he or she reaches the pinnacle, wants more. A car brand, especially one with deep pockets and luxurious heritage like Mercedes, can always further gild the automotive lilies, creating a step up for those for whom the brand's motto, The Best or Nothing, is a literal life credo. "It's always our job to make it better," Wagener says. "Each little detail, the wood, the wood under cover of the cabriolet, the leathers. All the super luxury details that make a luxury car into a super luxury car. The key is to make a modern luxury design and not a traditional luxury design. There is definitely a market for traditional luxury, but we always wanted to have Mercedes, Maybach in particular, as a modern luxury car.

Will AMG influence MV Agusta's three new 1,000cc bikes?

Freshly injected with capital from Daimler, Italian motorcycle manufacturer MV Agusta is reportedly on the verge of launching a whole array of four-cylinder, one-liter bikes in the near future. We're looking forward to checking them out when they arrive, but we can't help but wonder what influence we might see from the company's new tie-up with AMG. Though MV Agusta's new three-cylinder models have been garnering the lion's share of attention lately, a new range of four-cylinder models has reportedly been confirmed. There's a new F4 superbike on its way, a new Brutale naked street-fighter tipped to follow, and an additional sport-touring variant anticipated to join the lineup as well. A few months ago, MV Agusta released a customer version of its new World Superbike Championship machine, boasting over 200 horsepower in a 386-pound machine. Those specs made us sit up and take notice, especially with AMG logos plastered all over it to mimic the competition version's livery. And that only piqued our interest as to possible future collaborations between the two Daimler properties that could potentially extend far beyond livery. Though AMG has typically dealt with large-displacement engines with eight or twelve cylinders, it has been honing its skills on the smaller four-pot that powers the A45, CLA45 and GLA45 models. And as rival Volkswagen (having scooped up Ducati out from under Benz's nose) has shown with the XL Sport concept, the prospect of slotting the resulting motorcycle engine back into a four-wheeled automobile could prove quite compelling indeed. Related Video: