2005 Mercedes Benz Sl 500 on 2040-cars

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Erebus Motorsport Mercedes E-Class V8 Supercar completes the field [w/videos]

Ford, Holden and Nissan introduced their V8 Supercar challengers a while back. Erebus Motorport, whose racing program got the green light not even 120 days ago, has finally shown off the Mercedes-Benz E-Class racer that will complete this year's field of entries. The first AMG race car ever to be built outside of Germany, it's an Australian-built tube-frame chassis specced to the series' Car of Tomorrow rules, fitted with body panels that channel the E63 AMG.
Supported by AMG Customer Motorsport, the 5.0-liter engine is provided by HWA in Germany, the racing arm of AMG. Regulations dictate that it have roughly 650 horsepower, a redline between 7,000 and 7,500 rpm and a torque curve that matches the parity baseline set for all cars.
Lee Holdsworth, Tim Slade and Maro Engel will drive the three team cars, each with different sponsors. Their first showing will be at the Clipsal 500 on March 3 in Adelaide, here in the US we'll get to see them in May at the Circuit of the Americas. Check out the videos below of the Erebus car starting up at its launch, and footage of all of this year's cars doing pre-season testing on track together.

Mercedes investing $500 million for new Sprinter plant in SC

The commercial van segment is exploding in popularity in the US right now with a vast array of recent products from multiple marques, and there's even more on the way from automakers like Hyundai. Mercedes-Benz is trying to grab a bigger share of the expanding market, too, and is launching its smaller Metris here in the fall. Now comes word that Mercedes will construct a $500-million factory in Charleston, SC, that will build the next-gen Sprinter domestically. According to Mercedes, construction of the new plant will begin in 2016, and when complete, the site will cover around 200 acres, including a body shop, paint shop and assembly line. It will also employ 1,300 people who will be building Sprinters badged as both Mercedes and Freightliner models. Rumors about this new construction go back to late last year. Mercedes currently has to ship some partially disassembled Sprinters into the US from Germany, paying import duties on them, and then the company puts the vans back together at a site in Ladson, SC. The process obviously adds costs to the models, and the domestic factory should mean a more price-competitive vehicle. Plus, a local factory means quicker deliveries to dealers. Despite the laborious import process, the Sprinter is a hit in the US. Mercedes sold 25,745 of them in 2014, which made the country the van's second-largest market behind Germany. They were first launched here in 2001 and since then have gained a nine-percent market share in the segment, according to the company. Mercedes is on a construction boom at the moment. The company is building a new corporate headquarters for the US in Atlanta, GA, due to be complete in 2018. The German brand is also investing $2.4 billion to expand its Tuscaloosa, AL, factory to build models like the forthcoming GLE-Class. MERCEDES-BENZ VANS TO INVEST AROUND $500 MILLION IN NEW VAN PLANT IN SOUTH CAROLINA, U.S. 09/03/15 from Mercedes-Benz New plant to be built in Charleston, South Carolina, beginning in 2016 Next generation Sprinter also to be manufactured in the U.S. Expansion of the global production network as part of the "Mercedes-Benz Vans goes global" growth strategy Creation of more than 1,300 new jobs planned Volker Mornhinweg: "We are investing around half a billion dollars to create a top-notch Mercedes-Benz van plant here in South Carolina.

2015 Italian Grand Prix is smoke, mirrors, stalls, and stewards

For the first day-and-a-half of the Italian Formula One Grand Prix weekend, everything went to blueprint: Mercedes in front, Ferrari lurking, everyone else scrambling in their usual orders behind. Then qualifying came, and someone stirred the pot. About the only thing we expected was for Lewis Hamilton to put his Mercedes-AMG Petronas on pole position, the 11th time he's done it this year. He did it with a brand-new specification engine, one that represents not only an evolution in components, but also in power unit philosophy. Kimi Raikkonen lines up in second. It's been a long time since we read those words; the Iceman hasn't been on the first row since the 2013 Chinese Grand Prix, when he put his Lotus second on the grid behind... Lewis Hamilton. Raikkonen lined up just ahead of a Ferrari at that China race, then driven by Fernando Alonso. In Italy this weekend, he lined up in front of the Ferrari driven by his teammate, Sebastian Vettel, who qualified third. Both Ferraris benefitted from an upgraded power unit, ending a front-row drought for the scuderia that goes all the way back to Monaco in 2009 Germany in 2012. Nico Rosberg has a lot of work to do from fourth in the second Mercedes-AMG Petronas. Mercedes discovered a problem with Rosberg's engine but couldn't figure out the cause, so he reverted to the previous-spec engine he used in Belgium, one that's six races old. The lack of power hurt. Williams teammates Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas took fifth and sixth, with Massa seemingly given a team-ordered helping hand. Williams told Bottas to tow Massa down the front straight, giving Massa a blistering time in the first sector. Then Bottas did it again, ensuring he would line up behind Massa. The first Sahara Force India of Sergio Perez nabbed seventh, three places ahead of teammate Nico Hulkenberg in tenth, with Romain Grosjean in the Lotus behind Perez in eighth. Marcus Ericsson in the Sauber qualified ninth, but some clumsy driving saw him impede Hulkenberg twice. The stewards penalized Ericsson with a three-place grid penalty and two points on his superlicense, so Hulkenberg inherited ninth and Pastor Maldonado in the second Lotus inherited tenth. We hardly saw Hamilton during the race, because he led from the start, worked up a larger gap to second place on every lap, and didn't give up the lead for the whole event.