Day: Dec 1, 2015

Losing Face – Mercedes’ Billion €uro Facelift

Mercedes-Benz threw the piggy bank at the W212’s mid-life facelift. No, I can’t see where the money went either.

What a transformation! 2012 Mercedes W212. Image via paultan
What 1bn euros buys you. Image: paultan

The Mercedes E-Class represents the quintessence of Daimler’s saloon car range. It’s been their heartland model, the one from which they made their post-war name, so it’s incumbent upon Mercedes’ engineers and stylists they don’t screw the pooch. Yet screw it they did, 1995’s W210 and 2002’s W211 instrumental in tarnishing the three pointed star’s hard-won reputation for solidity, build integrity and reliability. W212 had it all to do in 2008. Continue reading “Losing Face – Mercedes’ Billion €uro Facelift”

Theme : Disappointment – An Introduction

The Editor delivers on this month’s theme.

Disappointment

This month’s theme is somewhat in the nature of a BBC Radio quiz. The subject itself is quite straightforward, and has overtones of both last month’s theme as well as the actualities of the so-called Season of Goodwill. It is ‘Disappointment’. The motor industry has always offered us high expectations, even more so now, when just changing the position of the rear view mirror will elicit two gushingly incoherent paragraphs from the PR department. Yet, on innumerable occasions, the industry fails to deliver on its promises. Continue reading “Theme : Disappointment – An Introduction”