Maff

Hi Guys,

I’m travelling to Bremen on the 3rd Dec to visit the SL, C and SLK factories, and I know a couple of you have questions for the people at Mercedes and/or AMG – if so let me know below and I’ll try my best to get you an answer.

Bear in mind I’ll be spending most of the time looking at the new SL!

WDC

When will they develop a paint that will not chip?

Blue Benz

Lets say I wanted a custom E55 and requested that they put on a Getrag 6-speed manual instead of their automatic (yes it will be able to handle all that torque and power) and I was willing to pay however much it costs, would they do it? I just want to know how "custom" they will make their cars, because on their website they say no demand is too extreme or something like that.

Some other questions:
Will the W211 E55 AMG use the same engine that's in the SL55?
When do the all new direct-injection 4,6,8 and 12 cylinder engines come out, and what can we expect, a whole lot more power across the line or just modest gains in power?

Thanks Maff.

JamE55

When are they going to have an AMG factory here in the US?? Or will they??

firstnameSteveC

I'm all for the environment, but all you have to do is look crosseyed at the new MB paint and it scratches and/or chips! For this kind of money, they could certainly do a little more engineering research...

mbtech208

Very intellectual questions indeed. But all I want is a half hour alone with a baseball bat and the guy who designed the ML's window switches.

Accord

Find out whatever you can about the new CLK's, it will be much appreciated by a lot of people .

Thanks.

karl k

Tnx for asking Mr. Ambassador.

The European Union, I believe this includes the U.K.? - is adapting the Euro as its currency officially and uniformly by Jan. 1, 2002.

This is one month from today.

Will the EURO immediately and/or long-range have a negative or positive effect on the cost of a Mercedez-Benz?

Simply put:

Will the MB price come down? When?

Bon Voyage

Karl K

Maff

It certainly won’t come down in the UK, as we will not be part of the Euro currency. All the other Euro countries have their car prices in both local currency and Euros for some time now. The price being very similar between the two currencies which are fixed.

My new CLK, which should be here in a month or so, is coming direct from MB Germany, and I decided to pay in Euros – which means I saved about $9000 of the UK sticker price – but could go up or down depending on the Sterling/Euro exchange rate.

I’ll ask if it will affect the global prices, but my guess is that it won’t.

karl k

I found this in the the British Car Magazine CLASSIC DRIVER:
http://www.classicdriver.com/uk/maga...0.asp?id=10663

"Mercedes-subsidiary AMG doubles business year 2000`s turnovers.

The Stuttgart-based company Mercedes-AMG GmbH registers a gain of nearly 50% increased sales in the year 2000 – turnovers nearly at 6.000 million German Marks.

With more than 11.500 delivered cars during the last year – mostly to USA, Canada and Germany, the tuning company reached a new record in sales increase.

To be able to react to the increasing demand, AMG invested about 44 million German Marks in production and product development. By founding 50 new jobs, the amount of employees was enlarged to nearly 470.

Besides vehicles based on CLK, E- and M-Class, the AMG-S-Class S 55 and the CL-Coupe CL 55 were sold about 2.000 times." END QUOTE

QUESTION:

Mr. Ambassador, could you please obtain production stats for 2001/2002? I realize that it is priviledged info, but since Mercedes-AMG GmbH is a publicly held firm, those stats w/ projections are perhaps not so priveledged and are published in their annual report to their shareholders.

Many thanks & enjoy your trip!

Karl K

(This is a repeat; it was a question in your designation post.)

Richard

Maff [and anyone else thats interested] you can forward by the Euro's (or take an option) that means you wont get stuffed if pound gets weak and Euro strong - many of the car import companies help you do that, and Im sure your bank will do aswell.

Mercedes UK prices are higher than rest of EU by 3% (ish) for the base car [but that makes up for the right hand drive], however, the option prices arent that close last time I looked, so you do pay more in the UK. Mercedes are one of the better at maintaining similar pricing, Many other manafacturers are still taking the biscuit with their UK pricing, and theres a huge business in "private import" services. Most manafacturers [including MB to some extent] hide this by packaging up many more options into the base spec car [for instance all purchased UK cars get 3 year warranties, wheel locks, alarm system with interior motion sensors and anti-tow]

RezaH

I would like to know when the CLK cabriolet will be coming out and when it does, will it have a hardtop like the others in the MB family (SL, SLK).

Thanks

Have a great trip...

Maff

Thanks guys for wishing me well. I’ve printed out this thread and will take it with me – together with the AMG trip numbers. I’ll try my best to get as many questions answered by the right people.

Richard – thanks for the heads up on that. The way I tried to play it was to use my Euro bank account, and the exchange rate was rather good towards the end of the summer, so I made some moves. However, I’m not counting all my chickens just yet!

Matt.

Blue Benz

Maff, one more important question: This guy (http://www.supercars.net/Msg?viewThr...threadID=67259) claims that Auto Motor und Sport stated that all versions of the next generation E-class will be available with 3 transmissions, a automatic, a 6-speed manual, and sequentronic, even for the E55. Please try to find out if there is any truth to this.

Mach430

I wouldn't mind any new info on the SLR.