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Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton buys LaFerrari

Lewis Hamilton has driven some of the fastest cars ever devised, like the McLaren MP4-23 with which he won the 2008 Formula One World Championship, the Mercedes W05 with which he won the title last year, and the new W06 he drove to the checkered flag in the season opener earlier this month. But what does he drive in his spare time? According to the latest reports quoting his boss Toto Wolff, the reigning champ celebrated his win at the Australian Grand Prix by ordering a new LaFerrari. The seven-figure, 950-horsepower hybrid hypercar may be made by a rival manufacturer to the team for which he drives, but then his employers at Mercedes don't (for the time being at least) build anything that competes in the segment – unlike his former employers at McLaren that offer the similarly potent P1. Something tells us he won't be invited to drive it at Fiorano, though - which is something his rivals Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel have all had the chance to do. Hamilton has a long-established penchant for driving twelve-cylinder exotic supercars in his spare time. At his previous place of work, he was promised an exceedingly rare McLaren F1 LM – valued at some $4 million – but only if he won three world titles for the Woking-based team. He also owns a Pagani Zonda that was made specifically for him with a 760-horsepower engine (supplied, naturally, by Mercedes) and a six-speed manual – complete with a clutch pedal, which (apart from starting off the line) is something he doesn't usually get to operate during working hours. Related Video:

Mercedes-Benz Concept GLA gets official ahead of Shanghai

Mercedes-Benz has something special planned for the Shanghai Motor Show - a new CUV concept that we first saw when it leaked on the internet yesterday. The GLA Concept compact crossover will hit the show stand with a turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine producing 208 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque mated to a seven-speed dual clutch transmission and 4Matic all-wheel drive, and likely previews a new production model that we've already spotted testing.
That's not news, but the laser-based headlamps with video-projecting capability certainly are. Mercedes-Benz says the array can project any image or video onto a screen, which is handy since there are a pair of HD cameras mounted to the roof rack. The cameras can be removed and taken with you on all sorts of adventures. The lamps also feature a visible cooling system comprised of a series of fans, and the system helps give the headlights their "sparkle" effect.
Step indoors and the GLA offers up the interior of a high-quality crossover, complete with contrasting leather and plenty of aluminum. The automaker says the cabin was inspired by saddle craftsmanship with "more than 65 feet of hand-stitched seams to hold the raw edges of the leather together."

Weekly Recap: Mercedes continues the pseudo-coupe craze with AMG-tuned CUV

But as BMW's X6 has demonstrated, sport sells in in the crossover segment, and Mercedes is giving the people what they want. BMW proved there is a market for crossover utility vehicles designed to look like coupes – as much as a vehicle with four doors and noticeable ground clearance can look like a coupe, anyway. Now comes the reply from Mercedes-Benz: the GLE Coupe. The rakish crossover is a harbinger of things to come from Mercedes, as it begins the company's transition to a new nomenclature and marks the debut of the AMG Sport line. It also continues the recent coupe craze. Designers from many automakers, like Nissan and Volkswagen, have increasingly turned to swoopy, dramatic styling to make utility vehicles and sedans seem more desirable. By revealing the GLE 450 AMG Sport model first, Mercedes is clearly hoping to cast the GLE Coupe as a sportier, lifestyle-oriented alternative in its lineup of beefy crossovers and SUVs. Mercedes used the word "sport," or a variation of it, 53 times in its press release, so uh yeah, it's sporty. It's not an empty promise: Benz means business with the AMG Sport line. This GLE Coupe gets a 3.0-liter biturbo V6 rated at 362 horsepower and 384 pound-feet of torque paired with Mercedes' new nine-speed automatic transmission, and it runs with 4Matic all-wheel drive. Specs on the other GLE Coupe models were not disclosed. But as BMW's X6 has demonstrated, sport sells in in the crossover segment, and Mercedes is giving the people what they want. After all, more than 260,000 people have bought X6s since 2008, and Mercedes wants a piece of that. From certain angles, the GLE Coupe even looks vaguely like an X6. "This is really a vehicle that is all about status," said Dave Sullivan, product analysis manager for research firm AutoPacific. "You can buy a SUV that doesn't have the inherent qualities of a SUV, such as cargo hauling. People will likely be drawn to the looks. Coupes are all the rage." BMW, however, isn't running from the fight, and the updated 2015 X6 is arriving in showrooms this month. It also added a smaller sibling, the X4, to its coupe-crossover stable in July. The GLE Coupe arrives next year, though Mercedes hasn't specified exactly when it will hit showrooms from the factory in Alabama, or specified details on the rest of the non-AMG Sport models. In 2008, it was surprising the X6 was a hit. In 2015, it will be even more surprising if the GLE Coupe isn't.