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West Berlin, NJ Car Consumer Discussions

Re: The Only Luxury Car... [62vetteefp]

by jimbres on Wed Feb 27 19:39:41 PST 2008

I guess I would think that most would say MB is the standard compared to the rest. Sure it is not a performance car like the BMW but in my opinion if a high priced BMW is sitting next to a high priced MB I would say the MB has more prestige. Am I right here? I'd suggest that car X is prestigious if significant numbers of upper-middle & upper-class professionals/managers/entrepeneurs buy (or lease) it. In my town, which is a fairly affluent NYC suburb, this segment of the market is voting German with its dollars. From what I've seen, this is true of most demographically similar zip codes on the east & west coasts. It might be different in the flyover states. It wasn't always this way. When I was a kid - in the late 50s & early 60s - Cadillac owned these buyers. The only serious competition came from Lincoln. I can recall just one Mercedes in my home town (also a fairly well-off NYC suburb), & it belonged to a career Foreign Service officer who brought it home after completing a 2-year stint in West Berlin. Apart from this, Cadillac was the car of choice for the local ruling class. No one thought that this would ever change. But it did. By the later 1980s, the doctors, bankers, lawyers, stockbrokers & successful businessmen were driving German iron: Mercedes, for the most part. The only exceptions were folks who, for personal reasons, would not buy anything made in Germany. By this time, the typical Cadillac buyer was either old or a member of what I'd call the blue collar aristocracy - the Con Ed foreman who had worked a lot of overtime, for example. Nothing wrong with that, mind you, but certainly not nearly enough to sustain a luxury brand. So I'd say that if Cadillac can recapture a significant chunk (20 or 25 percent, say) of the upper-middle & upper class market segment, it will be perceived as a top-tier player.

Re: 1487 [rockylee]

by brightness04 on Sat Jul 14 22:52:21 PDT 2007

In case it's not obvious, most European countries have been trying to emulate the US in the last decade and half. What happened in East Europe after the Berlin Wall coming down was obvious. In West Europe, all the major European countries have been gradually embracing market freedom instead of the old nanny-state way of doing things. The Brits had Thatcher, who was contemporary to Reagan; later on, even the New Labor learned that the market place is much more efficient at meeting what people want. German economy got so bad under the Social Democrats that they finally elected someone who grew up on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain and therefore has a real understanding of why and how the nanny-state doesn't deliver. Even the French have finally elected someone who is promising to liberate the market place from government red tapes.

Re: diesels? [alp8]

by markcincinnati on Tue Aug 22 05:13:09 PDT 2006

"Europe stinks?" Wow. Now that is such a broad statement, I am wondering what parts of Europe you are talking about. I have been to many countries in Europe (including eastern Europe) and only one of them had much smell of "fumes" -- and that was the first time I visited the country. In later visits, years later that is, I am certain the air quality was better than many American cities. When I first visited Poland, I went from Berlin to Poznan via train. This was in the early 1990's -- the wall had come down, of course, but the contrast between east and west so to speak was darn near stark. Almost like taking the drive from central Chicago to Gary (Indiana) -- or from Manhattan to Newark. As about 5 years passed, I made a second visit, this time to Warsaw. Hmmm, I thought, at first -- "kinda seems like Detroit, a bit smoggy, but a huge improvement and I actually saw western cars on this trip." Time Passes: Another 5 years, back to Warsaw and to Crackow, on to Prague and to cities including Amsterdam, the Hague, Brussles, Luxembourg City, London, Paris, Vienna, Triere, Munich, Ingolstadt, Frankfurt, Innsbruck, Verona, Milan, Rome, Venice (really smelly, but not diesel) and on and on and on from 1993 to 2005 (some years 6 trips in one year.) In 2005, I visited again, Munich, Innsbruck, Verona and Venice (these cities may not demonstrate the case for or against Europe Stinks, but they are in Europe.) In many respects, Europe (from the above perspective) has cleaned itself up -- America, by comparison has dirtied itself down. The number of smog alert days here in Cincinnati has gone up -- our busses stink and we are constantly told "not to mow our lawns or fill our gas tanks before 6PM." My impression is the Ultra Low Emissions diesels have been a huge success in the EU (and beyond since some of the countries I have been to weren't able to join the EU from the get go) as far as stinkyness is concerned. I say, bring on the UL diesels -- bring 'em here, bring 'em now, and bring plenty of 'em. At least if the criteria is smell -- for, from my perspective, Europe (as broad as that may seem) smells cleaner than America (and I will narrow those characterizations by saying I am generally speaking of the urban areas.)

Re: RX400 is number 2 [joebeatt]

by gagrice on Sun May 07 18:27:15 PDT 2006

The AMS tests are yet another indication that the Auto Bild "test" is all a fraud I suppose because the ML320 CDI is high on my list of next vehicles, I should respond. I am curious why you think the cross country mileage test was a fraud. Respected hybrid sites like Green Congress considered the test legitimate. If I could read German I may be able to tell how long of a test and under what conditions AMS tested. If it was once around the block in Berlin I would expect the RX400h to do good. Though 23.2 MPG is nothing to brag about. An English document on the cross country test: Although many may think hybrid technology is the only answer to rising fuel costs, a real alternative is actually the diesel engine, as the German car magazine Auto Bild reported in its latest issue. The magazine conducted a comparative test drive from the east coast to the west coast of the USA with two new Mercedes-Benz ML 320 CDI vehicles and a Lexus RX 400h with a petrol hybrid system. The test result showed that the advanced diesel engine is far more fuel efficient than the hybrid. In Auto Bild’s coast-to-coast marathon, the cars were driven about 3210 miles (around 5200 km), from New York to San Francisco. The results showed that while the ML 320 CDI (165 kW/224 hp) returned an average fuel consumption of 31.04 miles per gallon, the hybrid SUV (155 kW/211 hp) averaged 27.69 mpg. The difference of 3.35 mpg (10.8 per cent) underscores the superiority of state-of-the-art diesel engines compared to hybrid drives diesel better than hybrid in legitimate test

Re: I don't think anyone [merc1]

by djag on Fri Aug 12 16:29:58 PDT 2005

The Pacifica uses a five-link independent rear suspension that was optimized in the Mercedes-Benz driving simulator in Berlin. Its architecture (not parts) is borrowed from the recently redesigned Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan. The four-wheel independent suspension allows the Pacifica to provide a soft ride, more like a car than a truck-based SUV. There's also a standard load-leveling system that will help keep the vehicle from sagging under added weight. Parts are aluminum. (Edmunds)

Re: Ebay time [fintail]

by explorerx4 on Sat Aug 27 16:48:57 PDT 2005

fin... although i enjoy all your ebay posts, this one is the best for me. when i saw the pictures of the '60 wagon, i thought of the ridgeline. the shifty had a link over it titled 'enlarge this picture'. i thought. why would i want to do that? it looks really bad in a small picture. i think you really nailed the 'andre mobile'. the euro-american hybrid really got me. father is american, my mother german. when i was 8 or 9 years old, my grandfather(german) had the same car, but blue with a white top. he lent it to us for a trip to berlin. when we got to the east german border, my dad started taking some pictures. what i really remember after that is the border guard sticking a machine gun in the window of the car at my dad. he asked for our identification, that took the camera removed the film and gave the camera back. it took me a long time to figure it out, but here is what i came up with. we were driving a car with west german plates through to east germany. once the guard figured out that we were americans, he let us go. my dad, bring the kind of guy he was, stopped the the car around the next corner, and put in another roll of film. i remember stopping again to take a picture of a tank on a big cement pedestal. i also remember the gun had one of those barrels with all holes around the outside of it.