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ronnie schreiber @ Mar 17th 2008 2:44PM
"MB didn't do enough to differentiate the brand."
MB made two critical errors. The first was not giving the Maybach a distinctive style, instead of just looking like a slightly upmarket S Class. The second was coming out with the gorgeous CLS. As a CLS owner told me, "why buy an S Class? My kids are grown, I don't really need the headroom in back, it's got pretty much the same mechanicals as the S Class but in a much more attractive car."
So they made the Maybach look like an S Class and proceeded to make the S Class look dowdy in comparison to the CLS. If you notice, the revised S Class shown in '06 picked up a lot of cues from the CLS.
People like to pick on the US carmakers, but when I look at the Germans and Koreans, it's obvious that there's plenty of cluelessness abundant in the industry all around the globe.
leather bear @ Mar 17th 2008 3:48PM
@ Ronnie,
His CLS-owing acquaintance: “it's got pretty much the same mechanicals as the S Class but in a much more attractive car."
I’m sure a lot of those “4-door coupes” get sold for that reason, and DB is laughing all the way to the bank for every CLS that rolls off of the showroom floor. The CLS is not much more than an E-Class in a slinky cocktail dress (not much S-Class in it). DB sells it for near S-Class prices and pockets the extra Euros.
BMW (with the X6) and VW (with the Passat “coupe”) are trying a similar tack, but I expect VW to be the more successful of the two, as BMW doesn’t appear to have had a look the X6 with the house light up before giving it the go-ahead.