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Mercedes S-Class Magic Body Control ad is clucking awesome

This is a new ad from Mercedes-Benz. At no point does it show an automobile. Instead, it stars animals, but not the sort you might normally see in car commercial. This ad is all about chickens. It is bizarre, to say the least, with Diana Ross and the Supremes belting it out in the background, but it all kind of comes together when you realize just what Mercedes is hawking (yeah, pun intended).
It's for the manufacturer's Magic Body Control, found on the new S-Class. The system basically analyzes the road and prepares the suspension accordingly, leading to a ride that is, in the words of our own Chris Paukert "nothing short of spooky." You can read about it in our full review of the 2014 S550. Take a look below for the 53-second spot.

Drive visits a Mercedes Pagoda collector in Bangkok

The term "icon" gets thrown around a lot, but if there was ever an automobile that deserved the honorific, certainly the Mercedes SL is one of them. Now in its sixth generation, the SL has been the prototypical German roadster since the 1950s. A sports car with that long a history will inevitably attract a great many collectors, but with values of first-generation 300 SLs and 190 SLs skyrocketing, those enthusiasts without bottomless pockets are turning in growing numbers to the second generation. Known as the Pagoda due to the design of its removable hardtop, the W113-generation SL arrived in 1963 and stayed in production until 1971. By that point Mercedes had built nearly 50,000 of them, selling over 19,000 of those in the United States alone. Through three engine variants – dubbed 230, 250 and 250 SL – and numerous body-styles, all featured an inline-six, transmitting to the road through manual or automatic transmissions with four or five gears. More of a cruiser, then, that an outright sports car, but one that warrants its place in the history of the automobile. In this latest episode, Drive travels to Bangkok to profile a local enthusiast and collector. That's a rather difficult undertaking in Thailand, where it's illegal to import old cars, but Sittisan Quan Sundaravej rises to the challenge, locating classics together with like-minded local enthusiasts. The heart of his collection, though, isn't one he acquired, but rather inherited from his late father. That's the kind of provenance you can't buy.

Automakers face reality of EVs' cost — to jobs, and their bottom line

Related: We obsessively covered the Frankfurt Motor Show — here's our complete coverage FRANKFURT, Germany — European car bosses gathering for the Frankfurt auto show are beginning to address the realities of mass vehicle electrification, and its consequences for jobs and profit, their minds focused by government pledges to outlaw the combustion engine. As the latest such announcement by China added momentum to a push for zero-emissions motoring, Daimler, Volkswagen and PSA Group gave details about their electric programs that could give policymakers some pause. Planned electric Mercedes models will initially be just half as profitable as conventional alternatives, Daimler warned — forcing the group to find savings by outsourcing more component manufacturing, which may in turn threaten German jobs. "In-house production is almost irrelevant to the consumer," Daimler boss Dieter Zetsche told reporters on the eve of the Frankfurt Motor Show, in the midst of a German election campaign in which automotive jobs have loomed large. The company set a target of saving 4 billion euros ($4.8 billion) by 2025 to help fund the cost of its electric cars. "Daimler is the first company to state explicitly how much electric vehicles are going to hurt margins," said Bernstein analyst Max Warburton. "It was brave to go first — but of course it won't be the last." Volkswagen, for its part, said it was seeking new global supplier contracts to source 50 billion euros ($60 billion) of electric car content including batteries, which are not yet manufactured competitively in Europe. "A company like Volkswagen must lead, not follow," Chief Executive Matthias Mueller told reporters. VW diesel emissions-cheating exposed by U.S. regulators in 2015 triggered global public outrage, dozens more investigations into test-rigging by the wider industry and a push by some lawmakers to ban diesel and eventually all engines. TIGHTENING NOOSE Tesla shares jumped nearly 6 percent on Monday after a Chinese minister said it was a question of when, not if, Beijing bans fossil-fuel cars, tightening the noose around the combustion engine. France and Britain have promised its outright abolition by 2040. But PSA, the maker of Peugeots and Citroens, said it was concerned about the risks if consumers were left behind in the rush, and a new generation of battery cars does not sell.