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BMW reclaims US luxury sales crown from Mercedes

The numbers, they are in: BMW has reclaimed the luxury-sales crown from Mercedes by a margin of 9,347 cars. Mercedes donned the king's headgear in 2013 after a strong final quarter of 2013 when the new CLA and S-Class poured out of dealerships. This year, led by the 3 Series/4 Series and X5, BMW sold 339,738 units – a 9.8-percent increase year-on-year. Mercedes, led by the C-Class and M-Class, saw its sales go up by 5.7 percent to 330,391 units. We'll have to wait a bit to see if there's another registrations-vs-sales challenge as in 2012, when BMW was anointed US luxury ruler. Behind them, a dark horse named Lexus nudged closer to the leading Teutons, selling 311,389 cars. The Japanese luxury automaker also had the biggest gain among the top three, its sales rising by 13.7 percent compared to 2013. Audi had the biggest sales of anyone among the top five, though, with a 15.2-percent gain to 182,011, which moved it a spot ahead of Cadillac; the Wreath-and-Crest brand dropped 6.5 percent to 170,750. Acura (167,843), Infiniti (117,300), and Lincoln (94,474) took the final positions. Speaking of Lincoln, sales at the once-mighty luxury marque stand as the mightiest jump of any on this list, up 15.6 percent. That's the power of Matthew McConaughey... and better cars and a new crossover, sure. So now that we're back to Round One of 2015, in case no one else has said it yet: "Ok, fight!"

2014 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG S 4Matic [w/video]

Maybe you saw our recent blog snippet on a bunch of US journos getting pulled over in the middle of nowhere in Catalunya, Spain for driving a bunch of new 2014 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG models. By all accounts, they weren't speeding - which makes me softly guffaw. I was there in that group, yet I had taken the more direct route into the mountains from Barcelona so that I could... well, so that I could go faster. No one hassled me and I had the Autovia all to myself. And it was the goodniks - the team players - who got nabbed because Spain had decided to suddenly enforce the never enforced "must carry an international driver's license" clause of the highway code.
The departing E63 AMG with 518 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque from its M157 5.5-liter biturbo V8 hasn't exactly been poorly received. It isn't as crisp as, nor as pleasantly evil as its C63 AMG kid brother, but we generally accept that the heavier and larger car will always feel, well, heavier and larger.
As part of the 2014 E-Class mid-cycle redesign, Affalterbach decided to give its E63 AMG more power and torque for the occasion. The base car now gives off 550 hp and 531 lb-ft, while the hotter S version I tested (formerly the AMG Performance Pack) produces 577 hp and 590 lb-ft. The other big novelty is that E63 sedans will be available with both rear- and all-wheel drive, while all US-spec E63 wagons will be 4Matic equipped.

Red Bull may seek engines from Ferrari after Mercedes snub

Red Bull and Renault's fractured relationship is pushing the Austrian F1 team to find a new engine provider. But after a trip across the German border to chat with Mercedes-Benz proved fruitless, the team is apparently set to head across its home country's southern border, and into Italy. Yep, Red Bull Ferrari could be a thing next season. According to RBR boss Christian Horner, the company is just doing "necessary due diligence" in contacting other engine suppliers, although he's willfully admitted to Germany's Bild newspaper that the "idea of Mercedes is finished," BBC Sport reports. It wasn't so much that Mercedes and Red Bull couldn't come to financial agreement – Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz views throwing money into F1 in much the same way you or I toss pennies into the mall fountain – but rather that the Germans had no interest in supplying the best engines on the grid to the factory team's perennial rival. BBC Sport seems to think that fact, along with what the outlet calls Red Bull's "antagonistic" relationship with engine suppliers, killed the Mercedes deal. Honda and RBR aren't likely to happen either, thanks to McLaren (not that we think Red Bull would approach the Japanese, which have struggled mightily all season long). By process of elimination, that just leaves Ferrari. Scuderia Ferrari Team Principal Maurizio Arrivabene confirmed that his team can accommodate Red Bull's engine needs, and that he wasn't concerned with the idea of a Ferrari engine in an Adrian Newey-designed body. "In theory they have big names, with Newey as chief designer and it is easy to think that if you give them the engine they will build a scary chassis, which means they will be really competitive," Arrivabene told BBC Sport. "Concerning my team, my engineers and aerodynamicists know their own jobs. For that reason I don't have a problem, and competition is nice when you have a stronger competitor." "This doesn't mean tomorrow morning we will give our engines to Red Bull or Toro Rosso," Arrivabene added. And it's that statement we'd suggest remembering. There are, after all, still seven races left in the 2015 season, which is quite a lot of time for new and different developments within the sport's notoriously gruesome political process. In other words, don't count on an announcement from any team or manufacturer for at least a few more races. Related Video: