1986 Mercedes-benz 190e 2.3 Sedan 4-door 2.3l on 2040-cars

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Trump reportedly says he wants to wipe German cars off the U.S. map

BERLIN/FRANKFURT — A report that U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to pursue German carmakers until there are no Mercedes-Benz rolling down New York's Fifth Avenue dented shares in the luxury car manufacturers on Thursday. An excerpt from German magazine Wirtschaftswoche's article, which cited several unnamed European and U.S. diplomats but did not include any direct quotes, could not be independently verified, while a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Berlin referred questions to Washington. The news and current affairs magazine said Trump had told French President Emmanuel Macron in April that he aimed to push German carmakers out of the United States altogether. Macron's administration in Paris declined to comment on the report. The Trump administration last week opened a so-called Section 232 trade investigation into vehicle imports, which could result in a 25 percent tariff on cars on the same "national security" grounds Washington used to impose metals duties in March. This could destroy exports by German carmakers, which control 90 percent of the U.S. premium market and are the biggest European Union exporters of cars to the United States. BMW owns Rolls-Royce, while Daimler has Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen controls Bentley, Bugatti, Porsche and Audi. Daimler, BMW and Audi declined comment. Porsche was not immediately available for comment. BMW shares were trading 0.5 percent lower at 0939 GMT, while Daimler and VW's shares were down 1 percent and 1.6 percent respectively, underperforming Germany's blue-chip DAX. Trump has railed against German carmakers before. And in early 2017, in an interview with German newspaper Bild, he said he would impose 35 percent tariffs on imported cars. At the time, the president called Germany a great car producer but said that the business relationship with the United States was an unfair one-way street. Germany's auto industry association VDA says its members exported 657,000 vehicles to North America last year, with total exports of vehicle components, cars, engines, as well as second-hand vehicles totaling 31.2 billion euros in 2016. Imports from the United States to Germany amounted to 7.4 billion euros, meaning a trade deficit of 23.8 billion euros the VDA's latest available figures show. However, German brands also have huge factories in the United States, where they built 804,000 cars last year, VDA said, providing jobs for U.S. workers. Berlin has reacted angrily to the U.S.

2015 Mexican Grand Prix is a lot like old times

The last time Formula One visited Mexico, in 1992, 26 cars powered by eight engine manufacturers (counting Honda and Mugen-Honda separately) lined up on the grid; it would have been nine engine makers but the Brabham-Judd cars failed to qualify. In 1992 Lewis Hamilton was seven years old, Sebastian Vettel was five, Max Verstappen was still five years away from being born. Two of the current Sky Sports F1 commentary team, Martin Brundle and Johnny Herbert, were drivers. The starting three were Nigel Mansell on pole – 39 years old, this the year he'd win his only World Championship – and Riccardo Patrese both driving Williams-Renault cars, followed by Michael Schumacher in a Benetton-Ford. Only 13 of the 26 starters would finish. The circuit is has been reworked to today's safer standards, the track surface is brand new and slippery, but the atmosphere and packed grandstands haven't changed. Nico Rosberg was another point of consistency, scoring pole position for the fourth race in a row to beat his now-World-Champion teammate Hamilton by almost two-tenths of a second. The last time Rosberg turned pole position into a victory? The Spanish Grand Prix back in May. Vettel locked up third for Ferrari, followed by the Infiniti Red Bull Racing duo of Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo. Williams went two-up as well, Valtteri Bottas in sixth ahead of Felipe Massa in seventh. Max Verstappen turned in a great late lap to reserve eighth place, Sergio Perez did all he could in front of his home crowd to get ninth, teammate Nico Hulkenberg the caboose in the top ten. In that 1992 race the first three on the grid finished the race in the same order after Mansell dominated, and it was almost the same in 2015. If Rosberg had driven the whole season like he drove today the Driver's World Championship would still be up for grabs. He got a great start and held his line through the first corner, coming out ahead of Hamilton through the initial kinks, pulling away as soon as he got to the straight. Hamilton was never more than a few seconds behind, but every time the Brit inched closer the German found a few more tenths to keep his distance. The field got bunched up when the Safety Car came out on Lap 53 after Vettel spun and got stuck in the barriers, but Rosberg handled the restart perfectly. Both drivers made small mistakes in the last few laps while driving on the edge, but Rosberg earned a strong victory, crossing the line two seconds ahead of his teammate.

2016 Mercedes-Maybach S600 Review [w/video]

"Hindsight is 20/20" is a handy yet disingenuous cliche. The flaw is that hindsight is only instructive up to the moment you would have made a different, perhaps better, decision. At the moment of that deviation the past goes in another direction, one that you can't peer back into because you didn't experience it. So when we say we wish Karl Benz's eponymous firm had produced the Mercedes-Maybach S600 in 2002 instead of the gilded blunder of the separate Maybach brand and its 57 and 62 sedans, we just can't know if the formula would have worked 13 years ago. But we do know the formula adds up superbly right now. A little history: Wilhelm Maybach helped Gottlieb Daimler build a high-speed, four-stroke internal combustion engine in 1885. Eventually Maybach went to work for Daimler's new car company and designed the first Mercedes, the 1901 35-hp model considered the world's first modern car. Maybach left the company after Daimler's death, started a company building zeppelins, then joined his son to start the Maybach car company. Together they developed super luxury cars including the DS8 Zeppelin models that competed with Rolls-Royce. A reviewer in 1933 wrote, "The Maybach Zeppelin models rank among the few cars in the international top class. They are highly luxurious, extremely lavish in their engineering and attainable only for a chosen few." It's a whopping 28 inches shorter than the departed Maybach 62, but 8.2 inches longer than a standard S-Class. As is this Maybach S600. It's a whopping 28 inches shorter than the departed Maybach 62, but since it's 8.2 inches longer than a standard S-Class, there's a very different driving experience. Two-thirds of a foot isn't much, but the Maybach is 639 pounds heavier than an S550, or 231 pounds heavier than a standard S600. From the driver's seat we could feel every additional pound and inch over those other models. It is as if Mercedes threw out the aluminum and steel and chiseled this sedan from basalt. We've driven scanty few cars where we've been genuinely glad for blind-spot detection and 360-degree cameras – this is one of them. The Maybach's wheelbase is four inches longer than that of a Bentley Mulsanne, even though the overall car is almost five inches shorter than the Big B. That long wheelbase translates into tranquil steering response – the S550, S600, and Maybach S600 all have the same 2.3 turns-to-lock, but this sedan feels like it takes more effort. It even looks heavy.