RJC

The new S-Class has a form of I-Drive, so the new SL may end up with it too. Note the console shifter is now gone, relocated to the steering column.

Click on return to main article (lower left) after viewing pic for more info on the new S Class.

http://www.germancarfans.com/news.cf...ercedes/1.html

lorinserbenz

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thats a lot of photochop work.. I highly doubt MB would blantly copy BMW's design. Why adopt Idrive when it is hated by almost everyone that and its had nothing but bad press?

lorinserbenz

Guess that is the real deal, too many pics to be fake... <sigh>
You would think MB could come up with their own design, the inside looks like a 7 series to me

pilot20

The front (especially from an angle) still looks like a Lexus LS430 to me and the rear like the BMWs. MB has managed to take the worse stying cues from their competition.

Let's face it the W220 is a hard act to follow.

lorinserbenz

I didnt realize the W220's styling was held in such high regard.
From what I understand the 220 was a major disappointment in sales and looks.

I wont pass judgement on the new S, I bashed the CLS when it came ( pictures) out but I person I fell in love with it.
I think with some better looking wheels the new S will look cool.
It looks to be much bigger than the prior (220) version, and that alone is a step in the right direction.

LovinMercedes

Without passing judgement I can only say I am amazed that the inside of the car looks sooo much like the BMW.

tiggerfink

At first I thought it was joke. The car is ugly. But I saw it on benzworld and cried.

http://www.benzworld.org/news/news.asp?id=292

Gunther

I am completely digging the new look. The W221 is incorporating a little style and some of the Maybach lines. The W220 just looked like a long car without a lot of interest (to me).

I agree with Lorinserbenz, I wasn't too excited about the CLS until I saw it in person. There are now a few in my neighborhood and the more I see it, the more I like it.

Here is another link with pics. Check out the square on front and back pics of the silver S - it looks great - low and wide. http://www.germancarfans.com/news.cf...ercedes/1.html

Yes, the inside does have the BMW value - and the dreaded Idrive, but hopefully they have scaled back the over encompassing need to use it just to do simple things like change th radio stations. If MB doesn't include something along this line...aren't they also crucified for not keeping up with technology? Hasn't everyone been complaining about the lack of Bluetooth and other advances? So if they don't upgrade and include new concept technology they are reviled for being slow and behind the times. When they are moving forward they are being criticized. Where do they win?

We're currently in a toss up between the S600 and the CL600 - but waiting to see what the redesign of the CL is going to look like as well. But like Lorinserbenz, making no final judgments until the cars are here and we can see it, touch it and drive it.

tiggerfink

The article never mentions anything about bluetooth. I love technology, but I wish Mercedes put in the one that I want: Like bluetooth.

craiglieberman

****! UGLY!!

If I want an ugly, boring car, I'll buy a Lexus...at least you get a Lexus at the service drive!

Gunther

But that's exactly the point Tigger....to appease everyone who is even a minutely potential purchaser of the car they are going to have to never build the car because new and better will come along - then someone will be saying "they should have...."

Re: bluetooth? Should it be there? Yes....it's not even cutting edge technology but a standard. But I am not sure that I'd read an article from an independent that lists potential equipment and options and take it as Gospel when the car hasn't been released yet.

RadSteve

Just a quick question...anyone know the origin of the term SALOON used to describe larger luxury sedans? Just curious.

tiggerfink

It is going to be an endless cycle of technology upgrades. But on telephones Mercedes choose not to use Blue tooth or the standard Mortoral protocol, because they wanted the phone proprietary for more profits. Mercedes should look at phones as a commodity that will be obsolete in two years. They should allow us to use any phone and just sell us the interface to use the phone in the car. Mercedes should allow the venders to make theses interfaces.

Gunther

But that's exactly my point Tigger...to you it matters immensely what technology they use in relation to a phone for the car.

I couldn't give a crap. I hate phones and I especially hate cell phones. The only thing worse than cell phones, to me, are people who can't exist without one in a car.

I also live two miles from work and intown Atlanta. So nothing is ever more than about 5 miles away from where I am. The necessity of me to have to use a phone in the car is minimal. So the techonology that MB uses regarding cell phones is so unimportant to me; I wouldn't order their phone in a car. Therefore they aren't going to please both you and I regarding that one particular option. Yet they have produced a car that we both bought and like.

I'm not trying to beleaguer the point, nor to pick at you about this. I completely understand your point...but am just trying to exemplefy the fact that no car manufacturer can please 100% of the people. What you find to be an integral piece of technology doesn't matter to a lot of other people and has no bearing on the purchase of that car.

I love my A/V seats (especially with the humidity here in Atanta now) and in the winter my heated steering wheel. Same with keyless go. But I also know from reading this board that a large percentage of people have no interest in those kinds of options....

So it takes me back to my initial question...where does MB win and appease everyone?

Reno

Gunther, car makers select features based on who they believe will buy their cars and then they determine how to implement those features based on pricing and competition.

IMO, both the interior comfort features as well as in-car phone technologies are valid optional features for the SL. For a car at this level of market and pricing, the implementation needs to be at the highest level of sophistication because an SL owner would not be pleased to learn that his assistant's far less expensive and less glamorous car (or heaven forbid...SUV) sports a better implementation for peanuts. This tends to make SL owners look stupid and for many owners, mad and frustrated with MB

StapleGun

All I can say is lame-O!

blueSL

It derives from the French word "salon" and dates from the age of the luxury liners and steam trains when a salon or saloon was a luxurious place to pass your time. The same term was then applied to the first luxury cars. Sedan on the other hand derives from the enclosed chair-in-a-box for one person carried by two people.

Here in the UK, "sedan" is completely unknown, apart from in low rent US cop shows and movies; saloon I guess is more commonly associated with bars in the US... but I may be wrong. We are, after all, two nations separated by a common language...

Gunther

Reno -

I completely understand what you are saying. And the cell phone was just one example.

But...I will have to disagree about the "assistant" aspect. I don't care what my assistant drives and what it can do. I drive what I want. I chose it...warts and all. I studied the options in that car and made an educated decision that it was the car that I wanted - as offered. My car doesn't have to be "the best car ever" in every possible category; it only has to be the car that I want to drive - for now.

I have friends who have amazing and glitzy options in their Lexus and BMWs allowing them to raise and lower the car temp - and other commands - by voice alone. Glad they love it. Hope MB NEVER considers that an option. It's too gadgety. It's a pain in the butt. They get to repeat the command 6 times before it's recognized - or go through 12 menus to activate it. Thanks, but I can reach over and turn the air down faster - manually.

But it is another example of the latest cutting edge technology that someone out there (my friends for a few) found utterly desireable and necessary. There will always be something else fab-u-lous coming along that a buyer will say "why didn't they include that??" "I wish it did..." or "they should have put that in my car too." You just can't please everyone.

Market surveys are great to see what the owners and potential owners may want in their cars...but the car isn't made for one market. What people in the US want is very different from what people in other countries want....

so again...how do you please them all?

david_101

i believe marketers attempt to appeal to their audiences (PR) and markets (sales) by providing options, be they trim levels or technologies.

MB would do best by positioning their vehicles as exemplars of safety, security and usability, not gadgetry and design.

MBers overall tend to want the "best available," nothing else.

ToonArmy

Regarding Bluetooth, I think there's a difference here that is not being noted. Gunther, you don't want/need a phone in your car, and that's fine. If Mercedes did not provide a facility for in-car phones, that would be one thing. But once they do provide an in-car phone system, then I (and others) would argue that they are making a very bad choice by hard-wiring a technology with a 2-year lifetime into a product that should have a much longer expected life. Instead, I argue, they should use the standard Bluetooth protocol, satisfy the customers who want phones in the car, and have no detrimental effect (except a rather trivial cost, which could be optional, and is almost certainly less than the prorietary solution) on those who don't.

I'm not arguing whether or not M-B should put phones in their cars, I'm saying that putting in non-BT phones is a bad engineering choice and a bad customer satisfaction choice. It may be a short-term financially beneficial choice (fleece the customers who want phones), but that is seldom a winning long-term strategy for a company

Gunther

Just for the record...I think MB is foolish to not have BlueTooth in their cars. I was simply using it as a means of showing that all people have differing values on options and nothing is going to please everyone.

Given that circumstance it's hard to MB to please everyone - specifially in reference to the initial complaint - the use of an iDrive system in the new S.

REALLY...I think MB should have BlueTooth.

ToonArmy

OK, fair enough, Gunther, I hear your point.

Actually, on the gadget front, I'm mixed. I do like having a hands-free phone capability in the car, and I would love to have better options for iPOD or MP3 CD music with steering wheel controls. Voice climate control, or iDrive, agree, much better to have good old-fashioned knobs.

The driving-related technology, again I have mixed feelings. I love ABC for the flat cornering. SBC I really don't like in everyday driving, I feel I have much less brake feel, especially in trying to make smooth speed changes and stops. However, I guess if I were ever in an emergency situation, Brake Assist might well save me and I'd be glad for it. I haven't tried BMW's SMG or active steering, again the reviews are mixed.

So I guess my bottom line is not that I think that M-B is putting too much or too little technology in their cars, but that they seem to be making some poor calls on which technology to include. And I don't think that's just a matter of not being able to please everyone, they could have made some choices that would unequivocally have pleased more people than their current choices, and would not have displeased anyone more.

ruykava

well, now that all the pics of the W221 are out, most people are convinced by the styling inside and out, and i'm one of them. just see how the opinions are changing day by day in the new W221 forum!

i seriously doubt the current SL will have the new COMAND, i think it'll take a lot of effort to shift the shifter (haha) to the steering column, and add those shift buttons, and change the steering wheel, AND change the dashboard, AND change the instrument panel.

but the new COMAND is a very different beast from iDrive, much more like MMI in that there would still be buttons controlling everything -- if one wishes to use it that way.

pilot20

I think that opinion is overwhelming against the styling of the W221 (at least on mbworld).

There will always be suckers that want something new for the sake of change alone. MB is betting heavily on that.

LovinMercedes

There are many car manufacturers that are going to BlueTooth. For me, it is inconceivable they don't have it. One of those "you got to have" if you are going to be competitive in the technology world today.