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Autoblog Podcast #404

Episode #404 of the Autoblog Podcast is here, and this week, Dan Roth, Chris Paukert and Brandon Turkus talk about the BMW i8 and i3, this week's SEMA show, the looming Ferrari spin-off and the passing of Tom Magliozzi, longtime co-host of NPR's Car Talk. We start with what's in the garage and finish up with some of your questions, and for those of you who hung with us live on our UStream channel, thanks for taking the time. Check out the rundown below with times for topics, and you can follow along down below with our Q&A. Thanks for listening! Autoblog Podcast #404: The video meant to be presented here is no longer available. Sorry for the inconvenience. Topics: BMW i8 and i3 SEMA Ferrari to be spun off Tom Magliozzi of Car Talk passes away In The Autoblog Garage: 2015 Mercedes-Benz GLA45 AMG 2015 Mercedes-Benz C300 4Matic 2015 Ford Mustang GT Hosts: Dan Roth, Chris Paukert, Brandon Turkus Runtime: 01:54:34 Rundown: Intro & Garage - 00:00 BMW i8 and i3 - 36:18 SEMA - 01:00:53 Ferrari IPO - 01:12:44 Tom Magliozzi - 01:21:12 Q&A - 01:32:45 Get the podcast: [UStream] Listen live on Mondays at 10 PM Eastern at UStream [iTunes] Subscribe to the Autoblog Podcast in iTunes [RSS] Add the Autoblog Podcast feed to your RSS aggregator [MP3] Download the MP3 directly Feedback: Email: Podcast at Autoblog dot com Review the show in iTunes Auto News Celebrities Earnings/Financials Podcasts SEMA Show BMW Ferrari Ford Mercedes-Benz SEMA 2014 mercedes gla45 amg

Buy a V8 Mercedes-Maybach, or splurge for a V12? Oh to have such problems

There's a certain air that surrounds the Maybach badge, and it's not just the scent being pumped out by the ionizer in the car's glovebox. It's the cream of the crop when it comes to German luxury. These cars are filled with an acre's worth of wood and a herd's worth of cows, ensuring your fingers rarely touch materials as pedestrian as plastic. It's as quiet, as smooth, and as imposing as you think it would be. Though the latest model from Mercedes-Maybach, the S550, might have swapped in a V8 and all-wheel drive in place of the V12 at the heart of the S600, no other amenities have been lost in translation. The car's size gives it a certain presence. Staring at the profile shows a wheelbase that spans two counties, necessitating a microphone and speaker setup simply so that the driver can converse with the passenger – and a Maybach will almost always have a passenger. No one buys a Maybach to drive. You buy a Maybach to be driven. No means of transport short of business-class airline seating offers this much space. Sit back, recline the seat, roll up the shades and enjoy your $167,125 cocoon. But you know all of that already. What you really want to know is if $25,000 - the V12-powered S600 starts at $192,225 - is worth it to gain an extra four cylinders, 74 horsepower, and 96 lb-ft of torque. On paper, no, it's not. The two cars have identical performance numbers, and the S550 benefits from Mercedes' 4Matic all-wheel-drive system. Even with all-wheel drive, the S550 weighs less than the nose-heavy S600. Fuel economy is, as expected, superior in the S550. It's rated at 16 city, 24 highway and 19 combined as opposed to 13 city, 21 highway, and 16 combined. Visually, the two cars are identical save for a few badges. The V12 badge on the S600 is replaced with a 4Matic badge on the S550, and that's where things start to get murky. When you're spending six figures on a car, decisions become more emotional than practical. $25,000 is a lot of money, but there's a bigger difference between $25,000 and $50,000 than there is between $167,000 and $192,000. As stated, you don't buy these cars to drive. Performance needs to be merely adequate. A smooth, torquey V12 is likely preferable to a hairy-chested V8, refined as it may be. These cars will never touch redline, lest the passengers spill their champagne. Plus, that V12 badge is worth its weight in country club memberships. Driving an S550 is fine until an owner shows up at an event behind an S600.

2015 Malaysian F1 GP springs hot, humid surprises [spoilers]

In the two weeks since Australia both Mercedes and Ferrari spoke of the improved performance from their respective cars. In Malaysia, Ferrari showed it. Lewis Hamilton still put his Mercedes-AMG Petronas on pole position, but Sebastian Vettel got within two whiskers of the Brit, lining up second just 0.074 behind. Afterward, Vettel said Ferrari could win the race if everything went well. But in qualifying we didn't know how much of Ferrari's performance was truly down to the car and how much was down to the wet weather that struck near the beginning of Q2. The rain didn't hamper Nico Rosberg's run – the German said "I just didn't drive good enough" – and he took third spot in the second Mercedes-AMG Petronas. Showing what the Infiniti Red Bull Racing chassis can do when the power unit is working properly, teammates Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat grabbed fourth and fifth. Whippersnapper Max Verstappen, in his second race, qualified in sixth with an excellent drive through the rain; just 0.030 behind Kvyat, he said he could have got fifth if he hadn't had a running problem with his brakes. Williams head of vehicle performance Rob Smedley said he wouldn't complain about Mercedes' advantage, but Felipe Massa has spent the whole season so far banging the alarm about Ferrari's pace. He says Williams has lost its straight-line advantage, part of the reason the first Grove car is back in seventh, while Valtteri Bottas is in eighth. Between them was Romain Grosjean in the Lotus, but he got dropped two positions for a pit-lane infraction in Q2, so he'll be tenth. Ahead of him is Marcus Ericsson in the Sauber, who would lead the charge to turn in another surprise for the Swiss team. But the real surprise came from the Scuderia Ferrari, who, on a bright, sunny day proved that they don't need to add water for race-winning pace. While Hamilton got made usual awesome start at the lights, Vettel channeled that other famous German Ferrari driver and immediately cut across the track to intimidate Rosberg, maintaining his second place position into the first turn. Arguably the race-winning move came three laps later at that same turn, when Ericsson plunged in too fast and swapped ends, beaching the rear of his Sauber in the gravel trap. The safety car came out when the recovery truck emerged to retrieve the Sauber, and nearly all of the front-runners took to the pits to swap out of the medium tires. Vettel, however, didn't.