Filed under: Aston Martin, Maybach, Mercedes-Benz
Project Alligator. That’s the internal code-name for a potential collaboration between Mercedes and Aston Martin on everything from drivetrains to platforms. CAR’s September issue gets into all the details, which includes such tasty nuggest as the possible use of AMG’s 6.2-liter V8 in the next Vantage, porting over Mercedes’ future eight-speed auto ‘box into Astons, sharing platforms between both automaker’s high-end models (think SL and beyond), cooperating on the development of diesels and hybrids, and using Aston’s future products to keep Maybach alive and maybe even help the wayward ultra-luxury brand thrive with up to five new models. But it gets even bigger. A collaboration between the two could place M-B in a good position to buy Aston Martin if its new owners, including Prodrive’s David Richards, decide to exit the automaking biz. As CAR points out, however, the only potential loser from Project Alligator coming to fruition is Mercedes’ other partner, McLaren.
[Source: CAR]
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Filed under: Concept Cars, Coupes, Sports/GTs, Euro, Supercars, Daimler, Maybach
Click above for a high-res gallery of the Maybach Exelero
Big-bucks enthusiasts annoyed that they’re not the only ones at the club with a Veyron can now ensure that they arrive in total exclusivity. That’s because the one-off Maybach Exelero, commissioned by Fulda to act as a high-profile demonstrator for its tire line of the same name, is now for sale. The Exelero isn’t some delicate flower of a show car. Based on the Maybach 57 and powered by a 700-horsepower version of that car’s turbocharged V12, the Exelero reached 218 mph at Nardo. In many ways, Exelero represents what Maybach could have and should have been — a place where daring styling and incredible performance could merge with extreme luxury to compete with Rolls-Royce and Bentley. Instead, while the marque’s sedans clearly get the luxury part of the equation right, in terms of styling, they basically work in anonymity, looking like peculiar old S-Class sedans. There’s nothing anonymous about the Exelero, though, and for €5,000,000 (around $7.8 million USD), you can drive the sybaritic supercar that Daimler should have given Maybach all along.
[Anamera via eGMCarTech]
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Filed under: Car Buying, Convertibles, Sedans/Saloons, Maybach
Click above to view the Maybach 62 Landaulet in hi-res
Okay, it just hit us: eccentric. That’s what the Maybach 62 Landaulet is, in a word. In fact, you could apply that to the whole Maybach venture. Like Dennis Hopper said in the Keanu-tastic action flick Speed, “Poor people are crazy, Jack. I’m eccentric.” Daimler is evidently hoping that there are enough “eccentric” people in the United States to warrant bringing over the head-scratchingly-strange Maybach 62 Landaulet to the American market.
With trepidation and a considerable measure of revulsion, we’ve covered the emergence of the Landaulet from the initial rumor, through the preview before the car’s unveiling in Dubai (where else), the first video footage, its North American debut and its eventual production confirmation. It’s been a long and crazy wind-tousled process, and now comes confirmation that it’s coming our way. Oh, and the price? Ultimately confirmed at $1.35 million. That’s not a typo, and it’s higher even than the highest estimates we received previously. In case you, like us, are wondering who would spend that kind of money on a convertible version of a car that ordinarily costs (an already exorbitant) $433,750, ask Hans-Dieter Mulhaupt, the VP in charge of the Maybach program: “The Landaulet is for a superrich individual who wants something that is extremely extraordinary and enjoys being driven in a car with acres of sky above them.” There you have it: “extremely extraordinary”, for a million-dollar premium. Check out the images in the gallery below…those are free.
[Source: Automotive News - subs. req’d]
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