#Mercedes

Increasing signs that reports of the death of luxury cars are greatly exaggerated are emerging from Sindelfingen. To the joy of Daimler stockholders, and to the amazement of pundits who predicted we’ll be driving scooters, Daimler nearly doubled its profit guidance. According to the new reckoning, between €2.5 and €3b should appear below the bottom line as EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) by the end of this year, says Daimler according to Das Autohaus. That came as quite a surprise.

The fabled Mercedes “Shooting Break” (or Brake ) is one step closer to productiondom. Gasgoo reports that the Shooting Break will make “its world debut at the Auto China motor show later this week.” Meaning Friday, the 23rd. TTAC will be there.

Forgive Audi a little hubris. As Bertel Schmitt has explained, mere decades ago “the brand was thought ideal for high school teachers or tax collectors, who kept their hats on while driving.” To now be figuring in the nightmares of Daimler bosses clearly juices up the marketing staff no end. And though Audi may have won that MT comparo referenced in the ad above, BMW has held off the upstarts for at least one more quarter in the “friendly competition” over global sales numbers.

As analyst comments on the freshly-announced Renault-Nissan-Daimler deal come in [via Automotive News [sub]], a consensus seems to be building around the notion that the tie-up offers few real advantages to the three firms outside the real of small-car development. The financial impact and opportunities for luxury-segment component sharing are constrained by the deal’s structure, meaning the stock-swap and attendant hoopla are little more than window-dressing for the real project: developing compact and subcompact cars for tomorrow’s C02 standards. As Bertel noted, rumors of a Daimler-Renault tie-up have always centered around the Smart brand, and today Daimler’s Dieter Zetsche told Automotive News [sub] that

We could not have found a feasible basis alone for the next-generation Smart family… Of course, we could do a next-generation Smart alone, but we would lose a lot of money

If Automotive News’ [sub] dealer sources have heard right, then Daimler might sacrifice their S-Class on the altar of the almighty EPA and its newly announced CAFE standards.

That was expensive: Close to the Daimler proving grounds near Stuttgart, the local fire department could pick the remainder of a prototype Pagani C9 über-sportscar out of the guardrail. Cost: €1m, give or take a few.

Conspicuous consumption gradually is becoming socially agreeable again around the world, or so it seems. Germany’s auto motor und sport cornered Mercedes-Benz Cars sales chief Joachim Schmidt at the New York Auto Show. Schmidt said “we are probably going to reach a plus of more than 10 percent in global vehicle sales in the first quarter.” Why the sudden growth?

Didn’t BMW make noises that they “want to be the number 1 luxury carmaker in the United States by 2012?“ If that’s still the case, then the boys from Bavaria better get their act together. Currently, they don’t look so good. In the March 2010 sales round-up, they came in with a measly 3 percent growth, while the market grew 24 percent. Then, as Automotive News [sub] points out, there is a dark horse:

While the world was watching Volvo going to Geely, Germany was playing artillery observer: Daimler’s Zetsche came under a barrage of criticism last weekend. Not because of the graft accusations. That counts as necessary evil, at least if done abroad. Zetsche committed a mortal sin: He’s losing money, again. After losing billions in 2009, Daimler is supposed to turn the corner this year. But it doesn’t look that way.

Today, Daimler’s gullwing SLS AMG sports car is going on sale in Germany. Mercedes dealers all around Deutschland are celebrating the occasion with the appropriate pomp & circumstance. The Hamburg branch of Daimler for instance welcomes its guests with an easter egg hunt.

Do you have the €177,310 ($237,000) in disposable funds to get behind the wheel of that 571 hp, 197 mph fast beast? Take a number.

Mercedes-Benz continues its long march forward in China. In February, “Benz” (as the locals call the brand here) racked in a 160 percent growth. 7,200 additional Benzes graced China’s roads by end of February.

With more than 15,300 units sold in the first two months of the year, up 155 percent, Mercedes-Benz calls itself the fastest-growing luxury brand in China, Gasgoo reports.

Imports of the S-Class grew by 115 percent in February, cementing China as the world’s biggest S-Class market. The new generation S-Class is extremely popular amongst China’s well-to-do.

There’s a powerful sense of urgency in getting this Curbside Classic written. It’s to document the remarkable horde of old Mercedes W123 diesels hereabouts, most of them proudly sporting a biodiesel sticker. But the biodiesel fad was already waning substantially when I shot this car a year ago. And since the $1/gallon federal subsidy for biodiesel disappeared with the new year, biodiesel itself is at risk of becoming a CC (canola classic?). Congress is currently considering a renewal, but regardless, Mercedes W123s will still be around. In fact they may well be the last internal combustion engine cars running long after Peak Oil is a distant warm and fuzzy memory. Without being uncharitable, these cars are the automotive cockroaches: they’ll eat the grease out of your dirty frying pan, and you can’t hardly kill them.

Who doesn’t like a proper wacky duel? Like the one where James May raced a Ferrari against a camel, or when the guys from TopGear did a “train vs Aston Martin” from London to Cannes?

As in the case of the proverbial hare and tortoise, when you set two unlikely opponents against each other, you get some entertaining results — and you might even prove a point. That’s what Germany’s AutoBild (print edition, March 5) tried to do when it tested the assumption that power = speed.