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Mercedes G 500 4x4 is mighty mean and bright lime green

The Mercedes-Benz G500 4x42, finally ready to meet the crowds at the Geneva Motor Show, might just be the best factory-prepped expedition off-roader on the market, should Mercedes choose to build it. The short story is that some well-heeled admirers of the G63 AMG 6x6 said, "It's nice, but can you take it down a notch?" And by "notch" they meant "an axle." So the G500 4x42 gets just two portal axles instead of three, and a slew of other features. The 4x4 squared offers up a standard G-wagen body, but instead of the 5.5-liter twin-turbo V8 from the G63, there's a new 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 with 422 horsepower and 450 pound-feet of torque. Compared to the standard G500, the track is 11.8 inches wider, the street-cred rims being 22-inchers on 325/55 R-series tires. When it's time to get dirty, they can be swapped for an optional set of 18-inch wheels with 37-inch beadlock tires. With that setup and the same wheelbase as the G500 LWB, ground clearance and fording depth are more than doubled to 17.7 inches and 39 inches respectively, the angle of approach goes from 36 degrees to 52 degrees and the angle of departure leaps from 27 degrees to 54 degrees. Breakover angle is bumped from 21 degrees to 47 degrees, a two-piece stainless steel undertray protecting the sensitive bits when you push it. The only parts that get a raised eyebrow are the carbon fiber wheel arches and bumpers, which might behave badly when they meet an immovable granite object. To escape the sensation of driving the Taj Mahal in urban environments, there's a twin spring-and-damper setup at each wheel. One of the spring-damper combos is electronically controlled and adjustable, and when called into action via the Comfort or Sport mode, takes control of wheel action; even when passive, it will kick in to automatically to stiffen the body if it detects evasive maneuvers. On top of all that, to remind you that you're in a Mercedes the interior is fitted out with Designo leather trim and diamond-quilted microfiber. Mercedes is going to gauge its Geneva reception before deciding to build it, a hurdle we're sure will be overcome. Car and Driver drove it and verified it's the real deal, with pricing - if it's built - speculated to land between the G63 AMG and G65 AMG. The press release below has all the details. Related Video: Near-series show car G 500 4x42: The G-Class Squared Stuttgart, Feb 21, 2015 -- Only a G-Class can be better than a G-Class.

Hamilton wins in Singapore as Vettel crashes out from pole

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Lewis Hamilton took a huge stride toward his fourth Formula One title on Sunday by winning an incident-packed Singapore Grand Prix after Ferrari title rival Sebastian Vettel crashed out at the start. The Mercedes driver now has a 28-point cushion over the German with six of the 20 races remaining. Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo, who also emerged from the opening lap carnage unscathed, was second for the third year in a row with Finland's Valtteri Bottas completing the podium for Mercedes. "God blessed me today for sure," said Hamilton, who set a lap record on his way to a third win in a row, as he spoke from the podium on a night where everything fell into his lap. "I came here today really thinking it was about damage limitation, and we've come out ahead. So I'm very grateful," he said later. "To come to a track that was potentially our weakest circuit, and come away with a win like this and those points, it's really such a fortunate scenario... so I definitely have a skip in my step." The Briton cashed in after Vettel, Ferrari team mate Kimi Raikkonen and Red Bull's front row contender Max Verstappen smashed into each other as they raced off the wet starting grid and into the first corner. Raikkonen had made a storming start from fourth, Vettel a less impressive one from pole position while Verstappen went for the middle ground and was caught in a Ferrari sandwich as they converged. The stewards summoned all three and decided no driver was predominantly to blame. BITTER BLOW The first race to be hit by rain in the decade that Singapore has hosted Formula One had started in treacherous conditions, puddles gleaming in the floodlights, after a formation lap behind the safety car. With Hamilton starting fifth, everything looked set for Vettel to retake the overall lead that he had surrendered only two weeks earlier at Monza in Italy. And then it all went wrong, the collision with Raikkonen punching a hole in the side of Vettel's car before he spun into the wall at turn three. "It's bitter but it's done," said the German, a four times Singapore GP winner, whose retirement ended a run of 18 successive points finishes and left him with a mountain to climb. "Championship-wise it's a big step forward," recognized Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff. "The quickest car and the quickest driver were out within a minute into the race and that can happen all the time.

McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari call for unfreezing F1 engines

Formula One is a hugely expensive sport. Not only do you have enormous salaries and logistical expenses, as you would in any other sport, but each team also spends huge sums developing their own chassis from the ground up – and so too do the participating automakers in developing the engines. One of the ways the series organizers mitigate those costs is by freezing development. So once the new crop of V6 turbo hybrid powertrains were developed, that was it. But now three of the of the sport's leading teams are calling on the FIA to unfreeze engine development. Their reason? Unfair advantage. There's little question that Mercedes did the best job of developing its "power unit" to meet the new regulations that took effect at the beginning of this past season. That's how the Mercedes team won all but three of the grands prix this season and finished with at least one car on the podium at every single race. It's also a big part of how the teams that bought their engines from Mercedes this season managed to consistently outperform the other non-works-supported teams. That clear advantage is why Red Bull, Ferrari and now McLaren are calling for engine development to be unfrozen. Their argument is that, under the current locked-down status quo, their engine suppliers (Renault, Ferrari and Honda, respectively) cannot possibly catch up. So unless the FIA and Formula One Management want the next few seasons to be the kind of absolute blow-outs that this past season was, these leading teams argue, the powers that be are going to have to make some changes. For its part, Mercedes naturally counters that unfreezing engine development would send costs spiraling out of control. But then of course it stands to lose the most by re-opening engine development. If those three teams, however, closely intertwined as they are with the three other engine suppliers participating in next year's championship, manage to solicit enough support from the other customer teams and bring the matter to a vote, Mercedes may very well find itself out-numbered. News Source: ESPNImage Credit: Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty Motorsports Ferrari McLaren Mercedes-Benz F1 engine