Mercedes sls Brabus Unleashes a 611HP

Renowned Mercedes-Benz tuning house, Brabus, has chosen the Essen Motor Show, which is Europe's annual tuning extravaganza, to reveal its customized Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Roadster.

Targeting those that want added power and a more personalized look for their open-top SLS AMG, Brabus has developed a detailed program that starts with the engine bay.

A performance kit that consists of newly calibrated engine electronics with special mapping for ignition and injection, and a high-performance, titanium exhaust system with four tail pipes that's 40 percent lighter than the factory unit, bumps maximum output from 571HP (563 bhp) to 611HP (600 bhp).

Additional hardware modifications include an adjustable sport suspension from Bilstein that lowers the ride height by up to 40 mm (1.6-inches) at the touch of a button while the driver can also choose between damper settings that offer a more comfortable or sportier ride than the production car.

As an option, Brabus offers a Front Lift System that can raise the front end of the SLS AMG roadster by 50 millimeters (2.0-inches) by pushing a button on the center console in order to navigate over speed bumps or parking garage ramps. The system works at speeds of up to 30km/h (19mph), at which point it reverts to its original position.

The car also rides on more aggressive rubber - 275/30 ZR 20 at the front and 295/25 ZR 21 at the rear - mounted on 21 inch wheels on the front axle and 22 inch in the rear.

In appearance, the SLS AMG Roadster gains a modified version of the carbon-fibre aero-kit that Brabus has previously developed for the gullwing-door coupe. It includes a front spoiler, covers for the upper air-ducts, side skirts with illuminated Brabus logos, side air-vent trim, gas tank cap, a new rear bumper with side air vents and a diffuser, plus a discreet boot lid spoiler.

Brabus says that customers can order all the aero components in a high-gloss finish, a matte finish or in any color they want.

The final touch is the reworked interior sporting a different speedometer with a 400-km/h (250-mph) dial, stainless-steel scuff plates with backlit BRABUS logo, matte-anodized pedals and custom upholstery.

Daimler to Pull the Plug on Maybach Brand

During the past decade or so, many carmakers have looked into their past to shape their future: the BMW Group's new Mini, the Fiat Group's 500 and the Volkswagen Group's Beetle are among the most well-known examples. But as Mercedes-Benz found out the hard way, not all second comings prove successful.

And now, only a decade after resuscitating Maybach, Daimler is ready to accept defeat and stop producing the $350,000 luxury limousine when the next generation of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class hits the market in 2013.

“It would not make sense to develop a successor model”, Daimler Dieter Zetsche said in an interview with German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “The coming S-Class is in such a way a superior vehicle that it can replace the Maybach.”

Mercedes searched deep into its drawers and resurrected the 1930’s-era Maybach brand in an attempt to compete with ultra-luxury rivals such as the VW Group's Bentley and the BMW Group's Rolls-Royce companies.

It displayed a concept of a luxury sedan at the 1997 Tokyo Motor Show, and five years later launched two versions of the same car, the Maybach 57 and 62. Initial estimates called for around 2,000 annual sales, with the U.S. accounting for half of them.

Well, they were almost spot on concerning the 1,000 U.S. sales projections, as the brand recorded a total of 1,112 deliveries. The only problem is that these were not the Maybach’s annual U.S. sales, but rather its total sales from 2003 until 2010.

Considering that in 2004, Maybach's best year, it sold only 244 cars in the U.S., Daimler’s decision to shut down the brand in 2013 and concentrate on Mercedes-Benz’s flagship S-Class didn’t come a moment too soon.

Having lost the market share lead in the luxury segment to BMW since 2005 and dropping to third place behind Audi this year didn’t help the loss-making Maybach’s chances of survival, either, while last year's talks about a possible hook-up with Aston Martin were fruitless.

Despite the Maybach failure, Zetsche told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that Mercedes-Benz is readying itself for a comeback: “Mercedes is now mounting the attack in the high-end segment. We have always dominated this segment and that should continue to be the case. We don’t want to wait until the others pull ahead.”

Mercedes-Benz M-Class 2012 by Brabus

Brabus has arrived at this year's Essen Motor Show with a new tuning program for the latest generation of Mercedes-Benz's M-Class SUV.

Starting with the visual upgrades, the German tuner has developed a comprehensive aero package that includes a front apron, side skirts, a front fender attachment with an illuminated Brabus logo, a rear apron with a diffuser and an available roof spoiler.

Customers can order alloy rims in diameters ranging from 18 to 22 inches with a choice of Continental, Pirelli or Yokohama performance tires up to size 295/30 ZR 22 front and back for all wheels.

For the interior, Brabus offers numerous options such as bi-color stainless-steel scuff plates with backlit BRABUS logo, matte-anodized aluminum pedals, door-lock pins and foot rest, leather or Alcantara seats, and a choice of exotic-wood or carbon-fiber trim sets in all sorts of colors and surfaces.

Under the sheetmetal, the German tuner has worked with Bilstein to develop two suspension options. For models equipped with a conventional steel suspension, there's a choice of sport springs for a ride-height lowering by up to 30 millimeters (1.2 inches), while for M-Class vehicles featuring the AIRMATIC air suspension, the firm's engineers developed a custom control module that lowers the ride height of the SUV by some 30 – 40 millimeters (1.2 – 1.6 inches)

All M-Class models can be fitted with a high-performance braking system that comprises of six-piston fixed aluminum calipers with vented and cross-drilled discs measuring 405 x 34 millimeters (16 x 1.3 inches) up front, and four-piston fixed aluminum calipers and brake discs measuring 380 x 28 mm (15 x 1.1 inches) at the back.

For the time being, power upgrades are limited to the diesel-powered ML 350 BlueTEC, but Brabus said that more engines tunes are in the final stages of development.

The upgrade for the ML 350 BlueTEC includes a software optimization and a sports exhaust system good to lift output from the stock 258HP and 620 Nm (457 lb-ft) to 306HP and 690 Nm (509 lb-ft) respectively. The added power allows the ML 350 BlueTEC to sprint from zero to 100km/h in 6.0 seconds, an improvement of 1.4 seconds over the regular model, while top speed increases to 229km/h (142mph).