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New Mercedes E-Class nearly exposed, may be Maybach

The all-new Mercedes-Benz E-Class is marching closer and closer to production, with a new round of spy photos giving us our best look yet at the S-Class-inspired looks of the German brand's executive luxury car. There really is very little camouflage this time around – what's there looks more like the kind of plastic wrapping you'd see on a freshly imported vehicle at the port. In front, we can see the new E will wear similar LED accents to the S- and C-Class. The E-Class' big and little brothers also inspired the tail of the new model, where we can see slightly disguised, vertically oriented LED taillights. Prominent, enclosed exhausts are very similar to what we saw in our spy shots of the Mercedes-Maybach E-Class. Aside from the exhausts, this particular car also wears the same blingy wheels as the range-topping tester we spied last August. The thick-rimmed, multi-spoke design isn't the only giveaway to this car's luxurious intentions, though. Our last Maybach sighting showed a car completely covered in camo, making it difficult to tell just how large the rear doors are relative to the car we're seeing today. Instead of the doors, though, we suggest you look at the windows. Like the August spy photos, this prototype features tinted rear glass, which could perhaps indicate that we're looking at yet another example the second Mercedes-Maybach model. So is this yet another Maybach E-Class? We're leaning towards yes. The size of the back doors – and the rear quarter window, in particular – is close enough to what we saw last month, and the presence of tinted glass, the same exhausts, and the same wheels can't be discounted either.

Mercedes working on new inline-six engines

Mercedes-Benz will make a return to the inline-six-cylinder engine game, according to a report from the UK's AutoCar. It's not clear what's prompting the phasing out of the current array of V6s.
We'll see the first inline-six from Mercedes in next-generation E-Class, set to debut in 2016. Following that, it'll arrive as part of a mid-cycle refresh for the C-Class in 2017. What's particularly special about the new inline-six is its modular nature, which will allow Mercedes to eventually spinoff three- and four-cylinder options, with the three-pot arriving alongside the new inline-six.
In other news, AutoCar uncovered some details on the next C-Class AMG, which will ditch its excellent 6.2-liter, AMG V8 in favor of a 4.0-liter, twin-turbocharged V8, although we've already told you about that. What we didn't know at the time, though, was that the 4.0-liter would be paired first with a new, seven-speed AMG Speedshift transmission and offer all-wheel drive. AC also reports that a nine-speed Speedshift is in the works.

Pre-Race notes from the 2015 Nurburgring 24-Hours

Autoblog has come to the German countryside to watch the Nurburgring 24-Hour race, and just one day in, we have to say it's outstanding. Le Mans has been the highlight of our summer racing schedule for the past few years, the 'Ring 24-Hour event being the appetizer we always skipped. Earlier this year, however, while visiting Miami to check out the Cigarette Racing 50 Marauder GT S, we met Scott Preacher. He oversees digital marketing for both Cigarette and AMG during the week, then comes to Germany to compete in the VLN race series on the weekends, driving an Aston Martin Vantage GT4 for Team Mathol. If Le Mans is the Oscars of endurance racing, the Nurburgring 24-Hour race is the Screen Actors Guild award – the one voted on by the actors, for the actors. In this case it's the race by the teams and fans, for the teams and fans, even though the increasing manufacturer presence has altered the team equation. We were told that it wasn't so long ago that true privateers could win the overall, but that's not really the case anymore. Front-running teams have heavy factory involvement – Audi Sport Team Phoenix, for instance, which finished in first and third last year, has its own 'Ring race center and is running the 2016 R8; Aston Martin is represented by Aston Martin Racing and Aston Martin Test Center, and Bentley has a Bentley Motors team and uses HPT to run another team. The fan component hasn't changed, though, and you can't talk about the race for more than 60 seconds before someone brings up the battalions of spectators. Every driver we spoke to cited them as the most incredible part of this race after the track itself. It feels to us like a giant German Sebring, with thousands of people camped out in the ginormous, forested infield, many of whom have been here since Monday erecting their ornate camping compounds. There will be parties everywhere Saturday night, and so much bratwurst on the grill that the drivers can smell it when as they're blasting full speed through Wehrseifen. Even when we drove a Mercedes S63 AMG Coupe on a lap before the race, the fans waved like it was a competition. Scott Preacher's Australian co-driver Robert Thompson said, "You come around a corner and it's like you're driving full speed through the middle of a carnival." The race field itself could also be called a carnival, with an officially invited field of more than 170 cars. Even on a track that's 24.4-km long, that's like racing on the 405 at midday.