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How Atlanta landed Mercedes-Benz

The first phone call came last spring. An international real estate company had a high-profile client that wanted to relocate its North American headquarters. The client, whose identity was confidential, narrowed the list of prospective sites to Texas, North Carolina and Georgia. Would Georgia officials be interested in a discussion? Behind the scenes, they worked for months to lure the company, touting lower housing prices and a relaxed pace of life. They arranged interviews with CEOs of other companies in Atlanta who could speak about the area's business climate and they augmented negotiations with key executives from a utility company and Atlanta-Hartsfield Airport. Ultimately, they were also offered a reported $40 to $50 million in tax incentives. Secrecy was vital. The intermediary and officials with the Georgia Department of Economic Development gave the project a code name that changed three times throughout the summer and fall, so that only a few people had access to the most basic information. It was called Operation Eagle. It was only in September that the Georgia officials learned the identity of the client, Mercedes-Benz, and only last week that Operation Eagle bore fruit when the company publicly announced it would relocate its North American headquarters from Montvale, NJ, to the north side of Atlanta. "They put themselves in a spot on the north side where millennials can live in the city, and people can live in the northern suburbs and raise a family," Tom Croteau, deputy commissioner of global commerce for the GDED, tells Autoblog. "And when you combine that with the business aspect of a lower-cost environment, that's what we were able to provide them, along with a long-term commitment to support them however we can." In the move, the company benefits from a location that's closer to a growing base of suppliers that work with German car companies in the Southeast, as well as closer proximity to ports in Brunswick, GA, that are some of the busiest in the country. Mercedes-Benz will bring 800 to 1,000 jobs to the area. In addition to the employment, Georgia benefits from another notch in its automotive belt. Atlanta is already home to Porsche's North American headquarters. Kia Motors has a major manufacturing facility in West Point, GA, and General Motors opened an information technology center in Atlanta two years ago that employs roughly 1,000 workers.

Paul di Resta returns to DTM with Mercedes

Some drivers manage to make the transition from one form of motor racing into another, and some run into trouble. Take Paul di Resta, for example. The promising young Scottish driver dominated Formula 3 racing in Europe in 2006, then moved over to Germany's hugely competitive DTM touring car series where he finished second in 2008, third in 2009 and first in 2010. But things didn't go as smoothly for Paul - cousin to retired Indy champion Dario Franchitti - when he moved in to Formula One with the Force India team.
In three years on the grid, he failed to score a single podium finish. Little surprise, then, that Force India opted not to renew his contract for this season. Left without a ride, di Resta is now going back to DTM with longtime supporter Mercedes-Benz, testing the new C-Class touring car today in Portugal. It's good news for Mercedes, which is celebrating 120 years in motor racing this season and, with 2005 champion Gary Paffett also on board, can now count two former champions on its DTM roster.
We wouldn't count Paul out of F1 for good, though. When he won the DTM title four years ago, he was also moonlighting as Force India's test driver, and we wouldn't be surprised to see him pull similar double-duty with the Mercedes F1 team (or another Benz-powered outfit) this year before spring-boarding back into grand prix racing in the future. At 27 years old, he may not have been the youngest driver on the grid this year, but he's still got a good few years ahead of him.

Weekly Recap: Mercedes, Volkswagen spend big as import automakers invest in North America

Import automakers are on a building frenzy in North America as resurgent car sales have prompted companies to expand their manufacturing footprints to meet rising demand. That was evidenced this week when Mercedes-Benz announced plans to build a $500-million factory to produce the Sprinter commercial van, and Volkswagen confirmed a whopping $1-billion investment to expand its massive plant in Mexico. Meanwhile Jaguar Land Rover reportedly wants to build a factory in North America, but not for at least three years, and Hyundai is said to be expanding in the southern United States. The common thread in all of this expansion? Trucks, time and money. Mercedes wants to capitalize on the burgeoning work van segment in the United States and will break ground in 2016 on a 200-acre site in Charleston, SC, to build the next-generation Sprinter. The site will have a paint shop, body shop and an assembly line, and 1,300 people will be employed when production ramps up. Why do this, when Mercedes has immense van operations in Germany? It's cheaper to build in the US for the US market. Building locally allows Mercedes to avoid import taxes, forego a complex shipping process that involves partially disassembling German-built Sprinters and naturally, reduces the time it takes to deliver finished trucks to their buyers. "This plant is key to our future growth in the very dynamic North American van market," Volker Mornhinweg, head of Mercedes-Benz Vans, said in a statement. He was speaking about Mercedes and vans, but another German automotive giant, Volkswagen, had similar motives for its mammoth expansion plans in Puebla, Mexico. The added space and production capacity will allow VW to build a three-row version of the Tiguan, and provide another crossover for its US lineup that's light on SUVs. The current Tiguan has two rows. The factory will be able to churn out 500 units daily of the larger variant, and they will be sold in North and South America. It will arrive in the US in mid-2017, a spokesman told Autoblog. VW also plans to build another crossover, a midsize seven-passenger vehicle, at its growing Chattanooga, TN, site. "Localization has become key to safeguarding our competitive position on the global market, and manufacturing the Tiguan in Mexico will bring production closer to the US market," Michael Horn, CEO of Volkswagen Group of America, said in a statement.