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Mercedes C-Class Coupe due to go on sale next December

While we expect to see the coming Mercedes C-Class convertible sometime next year, perhaps at the Paris Motor Show, Auto Motor und Sport reports that the C-Class Coupe will go on sale in December 2015 (probably in Europe first) - it's possible we'll see it debuted at the same time as the cabrio. The German magazine says the two-door will have sharper lines on a body that is four inches longer, almost two inches wider and a fraction of an inch lower than the sedan, dimensional aggrandizement that will be put to good effect on the AMG version coming in 2016. We'll have to wait for information on powertrains, which should hew to the sedan's lineup in addition to whatever else M-B might bring over here, topped off by the 503-horsepower, twin-turbo V8 in the AMG variant. Speaking of which, the 'last-generation' C63 AMG Coupe is still on sale until spring of next year, if you're a fan of the classics. Or you can wait on news of the C-Class four-door coupe, if niches inside of niches are what you're really after.

Mercedes moves R-Class production to AM General in Indiana

Go back a decade or two and you'd have seen the SUV market polarizing in opposite directions: hard-core off-roaders like the Hummer on the one hand, and passenger-focused crossovers like the Mercedes R-Class on the other. Now their fates are set to intertwine, at least as far as manufacturing is concerned. No longer producing Hummers, AM General (which designed and originally produced the Hummer) has been assigned the task of manufacturing the R-Class at its underused, 675,000 square-foot Commercial Assembly Plant in Mishawaka, IN – part of metropolitan South Bend. The decision was undertaken to allow Mercedes to free up production capacity at its plant in Tuscaloosa, AL, where it also produces the M-Class, GL-Class and C-Class, and where it will soon begin manufacturing the GLE Coupe. The vacation of the R-Class assembly line could be earmarked to make room for that new slant-roofed crossover (which was originally thought to be joining the Tuscaloosa plant as a fifth model) or could pave the way for another model to reach Alabama altogether. The multi-year arrangement to manufacture the R-Class makes AM General the first manufacturer contracted to build Mercedes-Benz vehicles in the US, but hardly the only one in the world. The G-Class – which could, incidentally, be characterized as the German equivalent of the Hummer – is built on Mercedes' behalf by Magna Steyr in Austria, and the company builds many of its passenger and commercial vehicles for local consumption under joint ventures in the Far East especially. The R-Class was first introduced in 2005, and though it's still built in America, it was removed from the company's US lineup back in 2012. However Mercedes confirms that, since 2013, it has been and remains available exclusively in China. That puts the R-Class in the rare position of being manufactured in the United States by (or now for) a foreign automaker but unavailable for sale here. AM General Selected As Mercedes-Benz First and Only Contract Manufacturer of Vehicles in the United States SOUTH BEND, Ind., Jan. 27, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- AM General LLC and Mercedes-Benz U.S. International, Inc., today announced that Mercedes-Benz has selected AM General to manufacture the Mercedes-Benz R-Class luxury vehicle at AM General's world-class 675,000 square-foot Commercial Assembly Plant.

Dealers mobilize to protect their margins from automaker subscription services

Six individual auto brands — Lincoln, Cadillac, Porsche, Mercedes, BMW and Volvo — have established or are trialing a vehicle subscription service in the U.S. Three third-party companies — Flexdrive, Clutch and Carma — run brand-agnostic subscription services. And three automakers — Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and General Motors — have also launched short-term rental services. Dealers, afraid of how these trends might affect their margins, are building political and lawmaking campaigns to protect their revenue streams. So far, three states are investigating automaker subscriptions, and Indiana has banned any such service until next year. It's certain that those three states are the first fronts in a long political and legal battle. Powerful dealer franchise laws mandate the existence of dealers and restrict how automakers are allowed to interact with customers to sell a vehicle. On top of that, Bob Reisner, CEO of Nassau Business Funding & Services, said, "Dealers and their associations are among the strongest political operators in many states. They as a group are difficult for state politicians to vote against." In California earlier this year, the state Assembly debated a bill with wide-ranging provisions to protect against what the California New Car Dealers Association called "inappropriate treatment of dealers by manufacturers." One of those provisions stipulated that subscription services need to go through dealers, but that item got stripped out when dealers and manufacturers agreed to discuss the matter further. In Indiana, Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a moratorium on all subscription programs by dealers or manufacturers until May 1, 2019, to give legislators more time to investigate. Dealers in New Jersey have taken their campaign to the state capitol, asking that the cars in subscription programs get a different classification for registration purposes. Automakers run the current subscription services and own the vehicles. Sign-ups and financial transactions happen online or through apps, leaving dealers to do little more than act as fulfillment centers to various degrees, with little legal recourse as to compensation amounts when they're called on to deliver or service a car. That's a bad base to build on for business owners who've sunk millions of dollars into their operations.