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Mercedes GLS updates Silver Star seven-seater

It can be bewildering, the staggering array of crossovers and SUVs offered by Mercedes-Benz. There's the G, the GL, the GLK and the GLA, not to mention the new GLE and the ML that basically started it all. So you can forgive yourself if you've never heard of the GLS. After all, it doesn't currently exist. But it will soon. In accordance with Benz's new nomenclature, the GLS-Class will be the replacement for the GL – the largest of the Mercedes utility vehicles and the only one with three rows of seats. Since the current GL was only launched about two and a half years ago, the new nameplate won't be attached to an all-new model just yet. But as you can see from these spy shots, it appears that Mercedes is preparing a facelifted version of the existing model to fit into the new (or at least renamed) lineup. The biggest changes discernible from these spy shots is the revised front end, with new headlights, a more upright grille and a reshaped bumper and hood to go along with it. Around back the changes are more subtle, with reshaped tail lamps, bumper and exhaust pipes. Inside we're expecting a cleaner center console with a new 8-inch touchscreen reportedly inspired by the iPhone. We don't know when, exactly, to expect the revised GLS to arrive on the scene, but given the relatively modest nature of the revisions and how close they look to being ready, we wouldn't expect it to be long now. Whether those minor changes will be enough to keep up with the all-new Audi Q7 just announced, however, is another matter entirely.

Maybach lost upwards of $500k on each vehicle sold

Daimler is shuttering Maybach in 2013 after seven years of production. In that time, the company's ultra-ultra-luxury arm managed to sell just 3,000 units, and CAR reports Daimler lost somewhere around $500,000 on each and every one of them.
Even with a ludicrous price tag of over $370,000 for an "entry" Maybach 57, the brand couldn't quite recoup the dizzying $1.33 billion Daimler poured into it since its (re)inception. Rumors ignited over a possible tie up with Aston Martin that would have resulted in a range of new and attractive models, but Daimler has instead decided to snuff out Maybach altogether.
We can hardly blame them.

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.