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Mercedes picks Gensler to design new Atlanta HQ

Mercedes is planning to move of its US headquarters from Montvale, NJ, to Atlanta, GA – and with over a thousand employees to house, the project will surely be massive. In order to pull it off, the automaker is going to need the right architects. And Mercedes seems convinced that Gensler is the way to go. Never heard of Gensler? The San Francisco-based architectural giant (incorporated as M. Arthur Gensler Jr. & Associates, Inc.) has done the headquarters for Facebook, Coca-Cola and General Electric. It designed the Shanghai Tower, the tallest building in China, and crafted the master plan for the Olympic Games set to take place in Rio de Janeiro next year. It's done hotels, sports arenas, military facilities, airport terminals... the works. It also redesigned Cadillac's showrooms and Hyundai's new US headquarters, and among the many offices it operates in 46 cities and 16 countries around the world, it has a branch in Atlanta. So of the dozen firms Mercedes considered for the task, Gensler got the nod. The 250,000-square-foot facility is earmarked for completion in 2018, occupying a 12-acre plot at the corner of Abernathy and Barfield roads in Sandy Springs, Georgia. In the meantime, MBUSA is preparing to move temporarily from its current offices (pictured here) in Jersey down to another facility in the Atlanta area, also being set up by Gensler, in nearby Dunwoody – just a couple of miles down the road from where the permanent site will be. Mercedes-Benz USA Selects Gensler As Architect For New Atlanta Headquarters Facility Award-winning global firm to design 250,000-sq-ft office building in Sandy Springs, GA April 30, 2015 - MONTVALE, N.J. Mercedes-Benz USA (MBUSA) today announced it has selected Gensler as the architecture firm for its new headquarters facility in metro Atlanta. Gensler will design an approximately 250,000-square-foot office building that will house around 1,000 MBUSA employees upon its completion in 2018. "We talked to many, many firms and saw some amazing designs, but Gensler was the one that stood out for us," said MBUSA President and CEO Stephen Cannon. "They understood our brand and our culture, along with the ambitious goals we have for the next chapter of Mercedes-Benz in this market, and they were able bring that to life in their designs." MBUSA selected Gensler from a dozen global design firms for its creative building concept, which seamlessly integrates functionality and the beautiful surrounding landscape.

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.

Did BMW really win the luxury car sales race?

As anyone who follows our monthly By The Numbers series already knows, the luxury car sales race in the United States was close all of last year as BMW, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz seesawed up and down for sales supremacy. At the end of the year, it was BMW on top of the standings with 346,023 total sales. Or was it? According to data released by Polk, comparing the actual number of vehicles registered between the three top luxury players in the US paints a slightly different picture. Polk's data suggests that only 335,259 BMWs were registered in 2015, compared to 340,392 Lexus models. Why the disparity? It's all a matter of timing. Actual end consumers buy new cars, in almost all cases, from a franchised dealer. BMW delivered 346,023 vehicles in 2015, but only 335,259 of them were registered by their new owners. Presumably, those 11,000 BMWs did (or will) end up registered in the driveways of consumers, but they hadn't before January 1, 2016. Lexus General Manager Jeff Bracken wrote in an email to Automotive News, "Luxury sales leadership as measured by vehicle registrations is important to Lexus as it represents actual consumers engaging directly with our dealers." Of course, it goes without saying that we'll be paying keen attention to the 2016 luxury car sales race as it unfolds. If it's anything like it was in 2015, it'll come down to the wire, and even then may not be entirely clear. Related Video: News Source: Automotive News - sub. req.Image Credit: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty BMW Lexus Mercedes-Benz Car Buying Car Dealers Luxury luxury cars