2003 Mercedes-benz Sl500 Base Convertible 2-door 5.0l on 2040-cars

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Mercedes was set to sell version of Nissan Titan, now Infiniti might instead

Mercedes-Benz Titan. Mercedes-Benz Frontier. Mercedes-Benz pickup truck. None of these things roll off the tongue particularly well. We'd like to think that's the reason Daimler opted to kill the idea of rebadged Titan and Frontier pickups from corporate ally Nissan. In reality, the execution before the Frankfurt Motor Show was due to more complicated issues.
Yes, Mercedes, byword for German luxury, style and quality, would have slapped a three-pointed star on a pair of Japanese pickup trucks that have failed to resonate with consumers in the world's largest truck market. That slapping of badges isn't much of an exaggeration, at least on the outside. According to the report from Road & Track, the truck's front clip would have been tweaked, but beyond that, the sheetmetal would have been unchanged. The interior would have received a more thorough going-over by the team at Mercedes, while the suspension and noise, vibration and harshness tuning would have also received significant attention.
The trucks would have ended up being sold through the light-commercial branch of Mercedes-Benz - the same folks that will happily sell you a Sprinter van - had the deal gone through. Issues arose, though, first with the engines. Mercedes wanted a wider range of powertrains to allow it to tune models for specific markets, while Nissan said it couldn't engineer the wide variety of engines that MB wanted to drop under the hood. For the smaller truck, meanwhile, MB was interested in a hybrid or plug-in variant, according to R&T, although this was also shot down by Nissan.

Daimler exec hypothetically discusses 3-cylinder engines for small hybrids

Is three the magic number of cylinders for Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler and its efforts to build smaller powertrains for its compact hybrids? Potentially, yes, the German automaker could see the need for three-cylinder mills, Automotive News reports. The company doesn't have any plans for them as of yet, though. Daimler executive Bernhard Heil talked with Automotive News about the challenges of using four-cylinder engines in a front-wheel-drive setup and said that three-cylinder engines could work in transverse-mounted powertrains for hybrid cars. For now, though, the company doesn't actually have any plans to go in that direction, Mercedes-Benz spokesman Christoph Horn said in an e-mail to AutoblogGreen. Horn wrote that Heil "actually said that if ever MB would use a three-cylinder engine than [it would be] in a configuration where space is restricted, such as when using a hybrid power train in a compact car." Of course, the only compact "hybrid" that Mercedes-Benz has is the 2015 C-Class, but that refers to the "hybrid" body is made of 48-percent aluminum, up from the current nine percent, as well as steel. It has nothing to do with the powertrain. Beyond that, there's always the Mercedes-Benz S500 Plug-in Hybrid that the company unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show last fall, but that model, which will debut in Europe later this year and arrive stateside next year, has a 3.0-liter turbocharged V6 and an 80-kilowatt electric motor that propels the plug-in from 0 to 62 miles per hour in 5.5 seconds. Not exactly three-cylinder territory, that.

Mercedes widens luxury sales gap on strong early CLA demand

Mercedes-Benz CLA sales have been booming, with the Stuttgart-based manufacturer moving 2,300 of the sleek four-doors in its first week on sale. That is astonishing. Mercedes moved nearly twice as many CLAs (which start at $29,900) in one week than Jaguar, a brand that is on a very solid roll, sold in all of September. Ignoring the price differences between the Jag line and the CLA, that is still wildly impressive.
Mercedes has been pushing the CLA in television ads, using a shortened version of its Super Bowl spot, which starred William Dafoe, Usher and Kate Upton. "As the bargain entrance into the Mercedes portfolio, we weren't sure how luxury buyers would react," Kelly Blue Book auto analyst Alec Gutierrez told Bloomberg.
The CLA push was just part of MB's 6.7-percent increase in September sales, which were also helped along by a 17-percent jump in E-Class sales. That surge has allowed Mercedes to widen its 2013 sales lead over its rival, BMW, to 2,491 cars, according to Bloomberg. If CLA sales continue at this rate, we can only expect that margin to grow.