2010 Mercedes-Benz S63/S65 AMG Updated Details

With Mercedes-Benz deciding to refresh its flagship S-Class sedan for 2010, that means the S63 and S65 AMG are also due for an update. The German automaker has just officially unveiled photos and details.

The same engines as in the previous models are under the hood, with a 6.2-liter V8 that lays down 518 horsepower and 456 pound-feet for the S63 and a 6.0-liter twin-turbo V12 that makes 612 hp and 738 lb-ft of torque for the S65. The S65 is mated to a five-speed automatic transmission, while the S63 has a seven-speed sport transmission.

The S63 sprints to 60 mph in less than 4.6 seconds, and its V12 sibling gets up there a bit faster — under 4.4 seconds. Speed is electronically limited to just over 155 mph.



A new arrow-shaped radiator grille adorns the front, and LED daytime running lights have been mounted in the lower-grille air inlets. In back is a body-colored diffuser (current models have a black one), taillights consisting of 52 LEDs and a set of redesigned chrome exhaust pipes. The S63 gets 19-inch multispoke alloys and the S65 gets 20-inch rollers, both colored titanium gray.



The interior is dressed in lots of leather and features an AMG analog clock and aluminum shift paddles. Standard technology includes the Attention Assist drowsiness detection system, Adaptive Highbeam Assist and PreSafe brakes.

+ 2008 Mercedes-Benz S63 Drive Test
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+ 2008 Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG Review
+ 2009 Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG Black Series

The S63 AMG starts at the equivalent of $192,900 for the short-wheelbase model and $212,900 for the long-wheelbase variant. Pricing on the S65 begins at $309,930. American pricing has yet to be announced.
Gallery: 2010 Mercedes-Benz S63/S65 AMG

2009 Mercedes-Benz G-Class 30th Anniversary Edition Enhance Interior

To coincide with its 30th birthday, the legendary Mercedes-Benz G-Class benefits from new additional features that primarily enhance comfort and exclusivity in the interior.

Mercedes-Benz is once again going its separate way with the G-Class. Instead of modernising the visual appeal of the striking design icon and relaunching it with a new design, those in charge have left its indestructible, hallmark traits untouched since 1979.

At the same time, the consistent effort which Mercedes-Benz has put into the evolution of the “G” has helped safeguard its leading position.

In the most recent case, the “G” specialists have focused their attention on the interior and developed new seats. The ergonomically optimised front seats improve both comfort and lateral support, helping further bolster driver-fitness safety.

The new design has also modernised the rear seat bench, with modifications that echo the styling of the driver’s and front passenger’s seat. “G” customers can choose between black or grey fabric upholstery and leather appointments either in black, grey or chestnut.

Further added comfort comes courtesy of the new optional climatised multicontour seats. The line-up now also includes the exquisite designo leather upholstery in classic red or black as well as designo wood trim in black piano lacquer. Another highlight that will be available in early 2010 comes in the shape of the designo stone trim in Labrador blue pearl.

The standard specification now includes an Aux-in socket in the glove compartment and the familiar designer ignition key. As an option, indirect ambient interior lighting, a leather-trimmed dashboard, an extensive Chrome package as well as a media interface to connect an iPod, USBor Aux devices add to the feel-good factor on board.

New paintwork options are also available: “palladium silver metallic” or the “designo platinum magno” matt finish, which show off the striking body design of the “G” to particularly good effect, supplement the line-up for 2009. At the rear, the new models make a distinctive statement with a modified spare wheel cover with a three-dimensional Mercedes star.

Current model range: three body variants, three engines

The model family currently includes three body variants (short Station Wagon, long Station Wagon and Cabriolet), which can be combined either as the G 350 CDI (replaces the previous G 320 CDI with a new nomenclature) with the frugal V6 diesel engine or as the G 500 with a powerful 5.5-litre V8 petrol engine.

The top-of-the-line G 55 AMG - available solely as a four-door long Station Wagon - offers muscular performance, which, together with the incomparable vocals, underpins the character of this decidedly sporty version.

The G-Guard based on the G 500 long Station Wagon remains an important component in the model range. The fully armoured G-Class certified to bullet resistance level FB6 or FB7 provides protection against pistols/revolvers and long-barrelled weapons as well as against explosive charges of a defined size.

+ 2010 Mercedes GLK 350 SUV Road Test
+ 2010 Mercedes-Benz GLK350 4Matic Reviews

The evergreen Mercedes-Benz off-roader provides a superior synthesis of high-performance drive and dynamic handling control systems.

The standard specification includes the electronic traction system 4ETS, the Electronic Stability Program ESP® and three differential locks selectable at the push of a button, alongside the permanent all-wheel drive with off-road ratio.

On its 30th birthday: readers’ poll awards mount up

Readers of the “4Wheel Fun” off-road magazine named the “G” “2009 superstar” in its readers’ poll. The indefatigable off-roader came out on top in the same poll in 2007.

Following on from the success in 2003 and 2007, readers of “Motor Klassik” once again chose the Mercedes-Benz G-Class as “classic of the future” in 2009. For an incredible sixth time - after 2001, 2003, 2006, 2007 and 2008 - readers of “Off Road” have bestowed the title “off-roader of the year 2009″ on this automotive icon.

The G-Class boasts a long tradition of awards and accolades, reflected in the packed trophy cabinet. Readers of specialist magazine “auto motor und sport” have voted the G-Class the world’s best off-roader no less than 14 times.

In 1983, the Australian automotive magazine “bushdriver” named the “G” the best 4×4 off-roader of the year, undoubtedly rekindling memories of the Paris-Dakar victory that very same year.

In 1993, readers of the French “Magazine 4×4″ voted the G 350 TURBODIESEL the off-roader of the year. And in 1995, the readers of the specialist water-sports magazine “Boote” came to the conclusion that the G-Class is the best towing vehicle.

Gallery: 2010 Mercedes-Benz GLK350 SUV

Top Selling Luxury Vehicles in Canada

Franz Jung, the new president and CEO of BMW Group Canada, takes one look at the BMW X3 crossover and says, “We can do better.”

What he means is that BMW AG, the parent, can help provide an X3 with more “substance” and BMW in Canada can support it better in the marketplace. BMW Canada's No. 1 dealer, Brian Jessel of Brian Jessel Motors in Burnaby, B.C., agrees.

“The problem is, they gave up on it; they stopped supporting it,” says Jessel, whose flagship store sold 1,644 BMW vehicles last year – and nearly 900 more certified pre-owned cars.

Jessel wants BMW to put more muscle behind the X3, but in a tough market – where BMW Canada is pushing monthly payments more than design, technology, quality, safety, style, performance and cachet combined – company resources are stretched thin. Globally, the parent company is struggling to find profits and reverse a sales slide that matches the global economic woes.

But the fact is, cars – even luxury cars – are sold one at a time. And Jessel thinks that with a little help from above – from Munich – the X3 can be a much bigger player.

“It's a great car,” he says.

Ah, but X3 sales last year were down nearly 23 per cent, and slipped to No. 7 overall among luxury sport-utes. Not only is the X3 feeling the heat, but BMW, the No. 1 luxury brand in Canada, can also feel the hot breath of its competitors.

Mercedes-Benz, in particular, is charging hard in a highly competitive market. Mercedes' sales last year were up 26.4 per cent, while BMW's slipped 3.3 per cent. Of the top six luxury brands, only BMW lost market share last year.

Jung says he believes Mercedes-Benz is “buying” market share by selling some vehicles at unprofitable prices and supporting others with inexplicably low cut-rate deals. But BMW, too, is offering deals on its models.

“I don't want to give up [luxury] segment leadership in Canada, but I do not really understand the approach of our colleagues from Stuttgart,” Jung says. “I do not really think there is profit there. I do not want to play this [discounting] game, but I do not want to give up leadership.” Quite the dilemma.

The X3 is a good example of what is happening in the bigger luxury picture in Canada. When it arrived in 2004 as a lower-priced, car-based crossover riding on the basic bits and pieces of the 3-Series, the X3 almost instantly became a strong contender in a market with only a handful of rivals – Lexus RX, Mercedes-Benz M-class, Volvo XC70 were the others in its price range among the top 10 premium SUVs.

Now, consumers have all sorts of new choices, in addition to what was around five years ago. Audi is just launching the Q5, Mercedes has the new GLK, which is selling like gangbusters, and there are other relatively new players such as the Acura RDX, Infiniti EX35 and Lincoln MKX. Of course, the established models have received updates, too.

“We now have more competitors than ever before,” Jung says.

And they are all chasing a shrinking market with more products. Last year, the luxury segment did not escape the bigger global economic crisis and that is continuing this year. Luxury sales in 2008 fell to 8 per cent of the total market.

According to analyst Dennis DesRosiers of DesRosiers Automotive Consultants, the luxury market peaked in 2006 with 8.5 per cent of the total new-vehicle market. That was the end of a steady rise from 3.1 per cent of the market in 1990.

All that growth was the result of what you might call the “democratization” of the luxury segment. That is, small luxury cars now represent about 50 per cent of all sales, whereas in 1992, some 42 per cent of the luxury market was comprised of high-priced luxury models, DesRosiers says.

As well, in 1990, there were no luxury SUVs at all, while last year they made up 34.1 per cent of the segment. The vast majority of those premium SUVs are so-called entry-luxe models like the X3, Q5, GLK and EX35. Yet even as models have come down in price, even the most affordable ones come loaded with gee-whiz features such as the EX35's around-view camera.

“Despite this preference for ‘lower-end' luxury, don't think that our luxury vehicles are bereft of content,” says DesRosiers, adding that while Canada gets some less pricey models than in the United States – the BMW 323i, for instance – “Many Euro luxury brands choose to sell their most heavily contented vehicles in Canada, making unavailable certain lower-end accoutrements (cloth seats, for instance) that are available in other parts of the world.”

While Mercedes sales surged last year, other luxury or premium brands also had strong years. Acura, the luxury arm of Honda, held steady at 16,000 units, for instance, and Lexus grabbed the fourth sales spot just behind Acura by about 1,000 units. Audi was also a big story, with sales up 12 per cent. And Infiniti's sales jumped 12.6 per cent.

In each case, new models keyed sales growth. Infiniti, for example, added the EX35 to its lineup last year and it accounted for 2,300 of the brand's sales total of 8,159.

While great products are critical, DesRosiers insists that strong dealers are an underappreciated asset – that they are essential for healthy and profitable premium brands. Without customer-oriented dealers working out of well-kept, modern stores, even very good products can get overlooked.

“A great example is Cadillac,” says DesRosiers, “which addressed a number of its product issues, but remains a second-tier luxury OEM [original equipment manufacturer] due to long-standing dealer issues.” Ford's Lincoln brand is in a similar situation.

“Having the best-performing, and therefore the most powerful, luxury dealer network in Canada has served BMW very well,” DesRosiers says. “This is one of the key reasons they have emerged as the No. 1 luxury brand in Canada over Mercedes-Benz, and it's on the strength of this solid dealer network that they have remained in first place during 2008.”

Meanwhile, the relative weakness of the Detroit-based auto makers in luxury vehicles – in terms of both products and dealers – has left room for plenty of others to step in. Today, 27 luxury brands compete for the Canadian buyer, DesRosiers says.

Of them, BMW dominates the most important and largest segment – entry-level luxury. The 3-Series is a stunning sales success in Canada, as it is around the world.

That said, Jung says BMW plans to expand slightly down-market with at least one new version of the 1-Series. Jessel suggests it will be a hatchback version that will broaden the lineup from the current 1-Series coupe and convertible. A diesel 1-Series hatchback is a likely possibility.

However, BMW's rivals are anxious to move into this territory, stealing sales and share away from the Bavarian auto maker.

Lexus has grown its sales by adding the IS and positioning it as a sporty sedan with a very good price. Audi, too, is there with the new A4 and the face-lifted A3. Mercedes launched a new C-Class for 2008 and, by emphasizing its sporty handling and aggressive pricing, the C has been a huge success.

“A lot of Mercedes-Benz's overall improvement last year came from growth in the small luxury segment, with sales of entry-luxe products up an incredible 51.7 per cent to 11,173 units in 2008,” DesRosiers says.

Mercedes also cut the price and repositioned the B-Class wagon. That's another problem for BMW's Jung.

“We don't really have an answer for this,” he says, hinting that BMW is working on one feverishly.

Feverish is, in fact, a good word to describe the competition here. The serious luxury brands continue to expand their lineups into an ever-increasing number of segments. This could very well lead to lower prices and devalued brands, DesRosiers says.

Nonetheless, look for more new models to come this year and next. Auto makers, for the most part, simply cannot resist the temptation to grow sales even if the reward on the bottom line is minimal, non-existent or worse – entirely unprofitable.

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How the brands rank

The top luxury brands in Canada (ranked by 2008 sales)

BMW 23,244
Mercedes-Benz 20,363
Acura 16,381
Lexus 15,001
Audi 9,271
Infiniti 8,159
Chrysler 7,852
Cadillac 7,337
Volvo 5,365
Lincoln 5,227

Mercedes-Benz ESF 2009 Experimental Safety Vehicle

2009 is a year in which Mercedes-Benz celebrates several anniversaries in the safety field: in August 1939 the safety pioneer Béla Barényi started his work in Sindelfingen. He invented for example the principle of the crumple zone, a trailblazing innovation which entered series production at Mercedes-Benz in 1959.

With the help of its in-house accident research function, which was founded in 1969, Mercedes engineers in the following years have developed sev-eral groundbreaking innovations in passenger car safety.

Now it is time for a look behind the scenes, and in this anniversary year, Mercedes-Benz is using the ESF 2009 research vehicle to reveal what its safety specialists are currently working on – with a time horizon that often extends well into the future.

The ESF 2009 is the first Experimental Safety Vehicle to be built by Mercedes-Benz since 1974. Like its historic predecessors, it illustrates trailblazing in-novations in the field of safety and makes the progress achieved clearly visible. These amazing but by no means crazy ideas include inflatable metallic sections which give more stability to structural components within fractions of a second, as well as the so-called "Braking Bag". This airbag housed within the vehicle floor is deployed when a crash is deemed to be unavoidable, and uses a friction coating to support the vehicle against the road surface. The ESF 2009 will be premiered on 15 June 2009, at the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV) Conference in Stuttgart.



"Safety is a central element of the Mercedes-Benz brand. In this respect we have been setting the pace in the market for almost 70 years. For the benefit of our customers and for road users in general. The ESF 2009 shows that we still have plenty of ideas and the absolute will, to lead the automobile industry in this field even in future", says Dr. Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of Daimler AG and CEO of Mercedes-Benz Cars.

The ESF 2009 was developed and built completely in the test vehicle workshops in Sindelfingen. This safety research vehicle based on the Mercedes S 400 HYBRID fea-tures more than a dozen safety innovations, most of which are fully functioning in demonstration mode. "With the ESF 2009, we have chosen this particular time to clearly demonstrate the innovative strength of Daimler. Anybody examining the ESF 2009 in detail will recognise that more safety and improved energy efficiency are not necessarily a contradiction in terms. We want to make progress in both fields with new, trailblazing ideas ", says Dr. Thomas Weber, the member of the Daimler Executive Board responsible for corporate research and development at Mercedes-Benz Cars.




The following five innovations on the basis of the S 400 Hybrid are among the high-lights of the ESF 2009:

• PRE-SAFE Structure: The inflatable metal structures save weight or increase the stability of structural components. When at rest, the metal section is in a folded state to save space. If its protective effect is required, a gas generator builds up an internal pressure of 10 to 20 bar within fractions of a second, causing the sec-tion to unfold for significantly more stability.

• Braking Bag: This auxiliary brake accommodated in the vehicle floor is a new type of PRE-SAFE® component. If the sensor system concludes that an impact is unavoidable, the Braking Bag is deployed shortly before the crash and stabilises the car on the road surface by means of a friction coating. The vehicle's vertical acceleration increases the friction, and helps to decelerate the vehicle before the impact occurs.

• Interactive Vehicle Communication: The ESF 2009 is able to communicate di-rectly with other vehicles, or via relay stations. Using "ad hoc" networks and WLAN radio technology, it is e.g. able to receive and transmit warnings of bad weather or obstacles in the road.

• PRE-SAFE Pulse: This further development of PRE-SAFE® is able to reduce the forces acting on the torsos of the occupants during a lateral collision by around one third. It does this by moving them towards the centre of the vehicle by up to 50 millimetres as a precautionary measure. As an active re-straint system, it uses the air chambers in the side bolsters of the seat backrests.

• Spotlight lighting function: This partial LED main beam specifically illuminates potential hazards. If the infrared camera of Night View Assist PLUS e.g. detects deer at the roadside or pedestrians on the road, these can be briefly il-luminated beyond the normal area covered by the main beams, as if by a spot-light.



Mercedes-Benz is also presenting an innovative PRE-SAFE Demonstrator at the 21st ESV Conference. For the first time this simulator uses a linear motor for this purpose, in order to accelerate the vehicle cabin to up to 16 km/h within a distance of four me-tres before the impact occurs. The linear drive system, which is similar to that used by the Transrapid train, is freely programmable and also works in the opposite direction. This enables various acceleration profiles and also a rear-end collision to be demonstrated. The special feature of this system is that the 'vehicle occupants' experience the effect of the PRE-SAFE® functions live, e.g. belt pretensioning, NECK-PRO and the inflatable side bolsters of the seats.

Mercedes-Benz is continuing a longstanding tradition with the ESF 2009: for the ESV Safety Conferences held in 1971 to 1975, the safety experts in Stuttgart built more than 30 experimental vehicles and subjected them to crash tests to satisfy the vision-ary safety requirements of that time. Four of these ESFs (Experimental Safety Vehicles) were presented to the public, and many of the revolutionary ideas such as ABS or the airbag first entered series production at Mercedes-Benz.



Daimler management comments on the ESF 2009: "Safety is one of our core brand values"

"Safety is a central element of the Mercedes-Benz brand. In this respect we have been setting the pace in the market for almost 70 years. For the benefit of our customers and for road users in general. The ESF 2009 shows that we still have plenty of ideas and the absolute will, to lead the automobile industry in this field even in future." Dr. Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of Daimler AG and CEO of Mercedes-Benz Cars.

"Even in economically difficult times, we refuse to make any cuts where innovation is concerned, as shown by the highly complex ESF 2009 project, where we have chosen this particular time to clearly demonstrate the innovative strength of Daimler and Mercedes-Benz. Anybody examining the ESF 2009 in detail will recognise that more safety and less fuel consumption are not necessarily a contradiction in terms. We want to make progress in both fields with new, trailblazing ideas." Dr. Thomas Weber, the member of the Daimler Executive Board responsible for corporate research and development at Mercedes-Benz Cars.

"Real Life Safety is about more than scoring points in standardised crash tests, or the number of onboard airbags. The ESF 2009 clearly illustrates the comprehensive ap-proach of Mercedes-Benz with its numerous innovations for more passive and active safety. In line with our claim: One star is sufficient." Ulrich Mellinghoff, Head of Mercedes Safety Development.

Gallery: Mercedes-Benz ESF 2009