Kolbenkopp

Yup. Perhaps best to take it as a credit to the car's looks though?

It's so annoying. By "modern standards", everything is slow including whatever the posers in the comments drive.

A frigging b-segment Volvo crossover does 0-60 in 3.5 seconds.

Does it matter? No.

Not sure where that came from. People often forget to remove VAT (typically 20%) in EU when comparing prices.

And ignoring we don't have markups here, but discounts. Couple of years ago, I paid 23 k€ for a fully loaded mk 8 Fiesta ST. Something like 20% under list (German prices).

Honestly. this seems like the most likely thing. Already had a few more "late camoed" Benz sightings in our block this year. Just no phone with me. But we have an MB plant just across the river and the HQ of a dealership group in town.

Mercedes GLB Erlkönig auf Erprobung Die Auslieferung des neuen Mercedes-Benz GLB wird 2026 starten - als EQ Modell sowie als 48 Volt Voll Hybrid

Yeah. Looks really close to year old pics from GLBs. Hm. Will see if I can spot this again. Really need to go out for a walk anyway...

jesmb.de/26484/

That looks super close, well spotted. Wonder why it's still in disguise now. Hm. Some unreleased trim level garnish?

Or they are double bluffing and it is actually a smart disguised as a Benz in disguise :-D.

Yep, totally. Unfortunately spotted this while out with very non cary friends who already think I'm rather weird :-D.

Hope I can take a closer look if it pops up again.

A camouflaged Crossover car with German number plates issued in Böblingen.

Someone on our street must be working for MB. Gotta find out who that is :-). At any rate, looks like they brought some work home over the Christmas break.

An old Jaguar print advert showing various cats.

#Caturday

Yeah, half explained from my side. Sorry.

Not sure this is global, but probably is. Over here, the customers are 55, pretty wealthy and need a company car. Criteria: status, comfort, performance, practicality.

So they make them posher, faster Audis.

Think that is exactly what their management is aiming for.

The money comes from selling luxury crossovers to old people. Unfortunately, that worked *so* well, they have to listen to these customers now?

I'm not sure how / if they do QC. My China made model 3 had the axial bolts only on finger tight. How on earth can that be missed?

That was 5 years ago. Looks like this is independent of where they make them or how mature the company is. Which makes me think this is their accepted standard.

This is hard. I gave up and ended up with another Golf. Same vein, less boring (looks wise), Mk2 Leon?

To match the GSA by vibe... Advanced tech in a compact car... Seems to be very rare nowadays. Early hybrids perhaps. First gen Prius or second gen Insight? CRZ if it's ok to be 2 door.

I don't think this will work over here. Crossover market is ultra competitive. Why would people buy a Ford? Especially those that exprienced powershift and/or ecoboost issues.

Tragic really. I wish I had $$$ to hoard a couple of ST models.

Hah. Have they tried getting through "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" while commuting? Proper physical exercise!

How else can you ensure the reliability of their three-position switch (dim, flicker, and off)?

What ever shit he comes up with, I hope it will be preserved.

Like the WW2 U-Boat bunkers in Northern Germany. As a grim reminder for future generations.

Shameless cultural appropriation. This is reserved to German tourists landing at PMI.

Happy Halloween everyone.
#WorldBollardAssociation 👻

Top of that, these are basically only slightly larger c segment cars which might be a bit too small for US preferences. So why chance it?

Hope they don't screw up the GT version.

You can always call in well.

“Sorry, boss, I just feel entirely too great to come into work today.”

Today has big friday energy.

let's just not show up tomorrow.

Bravo! Thank you very much for taking us along. I really. really need to go next time I'm somehow close. Lovely!

DANKE!

He's got the first line wrong as well. Looks like what is drving the growth is Chinese fossil cars. EVs seem to be pretty much flat since mid 22.

Kia EV4 GT and Hyundai Ioniq 3. But that is it. Over here in Europe we're not getting the affordable interesting stuff anymore.

Even though he's closely associated with the UK, most Queen fans don't realize Freddie Mercury was born in Zanzibar & went to school in India before his family fled to the UK during the revolution.

I like more granular configurability in cars. There's a lot of stuff I don't want even if it was "free".

But this is setting up some first time EV buyers (especially those coming in via BIK subsidies) for a surprise.

Should be standard, but failing that I hope their sales staff has been clued up.

A looong time ago we had something like this happen. Actually three semis. Full of W123 steelies.

The fairly primitve parts ordering algo back then needed manual plausibilty checking. And sometimes stuff would get missed.

So when an old fleet of W123 taxis came in for winter tyres one week...

I read the one for AfD and it's as you'd expect. Complete with a take on msm bias against them. Citing a "scientific" study conducted by - drum roll - an AfD member.