Mercedes Is Fourth in U.S. Sales
German carmaker Mercedes-Benz offers the only diesel-powered luxury car in the market, the E320 CDI. This four-door sedan with 3.2-liter, inline 6-cylinder, common rail diesel engine is the first Mercedes diesel car offering in the U.S. in five years. It not only offers more torque—369 lb-ft between 1800 and 2600 rpm—than the regular 6-cylinder gasoline E-Class sedan, it has the best fuel economy rating of any similar-sized luxury car, or 27 miles a gallon in city driving and 37 mpg on the highway. Starting MSRP is more than $50,000.
Mercedes has a long history of luxury and innovation that includes development of airbags. Indeed, today's Mercedes-Benz SL-Class, for example, has safety features that include dual-stage front airbags, head and thorax side airbags, and a driver's knee airbag as well as pop-up roll bar and electronic braking system.
The Mercedes-Benz S-Classsedan includes a PreSafe system that automatically positions seats and pretensions seat belts just before a collision occurs. In addition, Mercedes offers its 4Matic all-wheel-drive system on a variety of models.
As for performance, the choices are varied. For example, the Mercedes S600 has a twin-turbo V12 with 493 horsepower and 590 lb-ft of torque, while the S55 AMG is powered by a supercharged 5.5-liter V8 with 493 horsepower and 516 lb-ft of torque.
The S55 AMG isn't the only performance model to wear the AMG badge. The midsize Mercedes-Benz E-Classcomes in an E55 AMG version with 469-horsepower 5.5-liter supercharged V8, and there are AMG versions of the C-Class, Mercedes-Benz CLK, Mercedes-Benz SL and Mercedes-Benz SLK, too. AMG models are limited production cars from Mercedes' motorsports and performance group.
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