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This or That: Mercedes S-Class 350SD vs. 2003 Jaguar XJR [w/poll]

Budget. It's a wretched word, whether you're going out to eat, shipping for a new outfit or, more relevant to today's discussion, buying a car. Massive marketing machines have convinced us, as a population, to buy the best you can afford, repercussions be damned – If you've saved up some money, spend it! All of it, on whatever it is that currently sits atop your personal Amazon wishlist, be it a Timex that takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin', a $17,000 Gold Apple Watch or a $60,000 Rolex Cosmograph Daytona. But what if the best you can afford is... say, $12,815? For that price, you can buy a brand-new 2015 Nissan Versa (including destination), assuming you're happy with zero options and a manual transmission. For that price, you'll get standard air conditioning, a CD player and... well, a warranty. Pretty sensible choice, Captain Frugal. But also ridiculously uninspired. And so that brings us to today's edition of This or That, in which two Autoblog editors pick differing sides of an argument and duke it out to see which one of us can convince you, dear reader, is better. Or at least less wrong. You be the judge. As a refresher, I'm two-and-two on these challenges, having lost the first and second editions before storming back in rounds three and four. Today, as alluded to above, we decided to throw our collective brainpower (oh lord, what have we done?) at what may be the single most difficult question currently confounding the best minds our planet has to offer: What is the best used used luxury car you can buy for the price of a 2015 Nissan Versa? Shall we meet our contenders? Allow me to introduce you to the most perfect luxury car money can buy (assuming the amount of money you're holding is equal to the amount of the cheapest new car currently sold in America, the Nissan Versa). My pick is the 1991 Mercedes-Benz S-Class. Not just any S-Class, but the legendary W126, which was produced between 1979 and 1992. And not just any W126, either, but one powered by a 3.5-liter turbodiesel engine. And with that, I send the argument to my esteemed colleague, Associate Editor Chris Bruce. Bruce: Jeremy, we had over $12,000 to budget for this challenge, and the best you can manage is a 24-year-old diesel Mercedes? I love oil-burners as much as any other auto writer with their mountains of torque and huge cruising range, but you're making this too easy on me. Also, you're really choosing a brown, diesel, German luxury sedan?

Infiniti went out of its way to make the QX30 not a Mercedes

You can complain all you want about perceived badge engineering when a company (like Mercedes-Benz) sells a platform to another brand (such as Infiniti). The reality is that most buyers won't know the difference, and they won't even realize their Infiniti is really a Mercedes underneath or that their neighbor's GLA has the same basic parts as the QX30 they just bought. What's weird to me isn't that sameness, but the places where the two cute little utes differ. These two vehicles, which are more like tall hatchbacks, use the same Mercedes 2.0-liter turbo four and seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. Infiniti adds its own throttle and transmission calibrations. The suspension design is the same, although there are tuning differences. Both come standard with front-wheel drive, with all-wheel drive an option. Fuel economy matches for the FWD models, while the AWD Infiniti lags behind the Mercedes for some reason. So they're very similar despite their different looks. And design makes sense as a point of differentiation. Frankly, they go further than a lot of vehicles on shared platforms do – further, in fact, than the upcoming Nissan Navara-based Mercedes X-Class pickup does. The QX30 has its own sheetmetal and glass to separate it from the GLA-class. You probably think one looks better than the other. If you know where to look, the signs of sameness are obvious. Most major systems and pieces are shared, like the steering wheels (with different center covers), most switchgear, and things like interior and exterior door handles. Shared parts are fine as long as the parts are good ones. On that note, how many Tesla buyers realize their steering column and stalks, plus the window switches, come from Mercedes? And does that actually matter? We'd argue no. About those differences. Many are functional, like the fact the Infiniti does not carry over the Benz's Brake Hold feature – when you roll to a stop in the GLA (or any other Benz), pressing the brake pedal firmly applies the electric parking brake until you hit the gas to move again. The QX30 has an electric parking brake, but no Brake Hold feature. Someone used to driving Mercedes models will look a bit silly standing on the brake pedal to no effect. Ask us how we know. The Mercedes gauge package is carried over, but with the Infiniti font. Makes sense, although it's off-putting at first if you've seen the original, prompting a weird deja vu. Circular dash vents are replaced by rhomboid ones.

Mercedes teases massive new Maybach coupe

Mercedes-Benz hasn't done a lot with its Maybach brand over the last few years. After killing the slow-selling standalone Maybach line, the badge sat unused, until MB slapped it on a luxed-out S600. But today, Mercedes posted a teaser of a new, two-door Maybach on its social media channels. Immediately given away by the Maybach badge on the C-pillar (and possibly one on the nose), we could be looking at a modern-day Exelero – a successor to Maybach's last coupe, a one-off, 700-horsepower rocket ship that deserved all the Darth Vader's car cliches – capable of extremely high speeds and stunning comfort. Everything from the long hood (better to accommodate some monstrous V12 engine) to the windshield's aggressive rake, to the absurdly long tail, signals a 200-mile-per-hour-plus top speed for this concept. And yes, we're thinking this is a concept. Kick the exposure way up with Photoshop and you can see that the side mirrors are too slim to actually function as normal mirrors – they're almost certainly cameras. Other details? Whatever Mercedes calls its new Maybach, it's going to be huge. According to the caption accompanying the teaser, this car is six meters (19.6 feet) long – that's over three feet longer than an S-Class Coupe and nearly four feet longer than a Bentley Continental GT. Like we said, it's enormous. And that's about all we know. Mercedes dropped this teaser out of the blue, nearly two months before the auto show season kicks off in Paris. It's possible the company could continue to tease out a new Maybach concept until early October, but more likely, we'll see an online debut ahead of the Paris show. Stay tuned. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Image Credit: Mercedes-Benz Facebook Paris Motor Show Maybach Mercedes-Benz Coupe Concept Cars Performance 2016 paris motor show mercedes-maybach