Retail sales might be "up 150%" but that's probably due to one business buying about 50 in a fleet renewal. In the UK, new retail buyers lost interest in vehicles like this about 10 years ago, and it's a similar story on mainland Europe.

The main appeal is to fleet buyers, especially small businesses which want 4x4 but…

Where's my S-class shooting brake? I'd sell a couple of limbs for an S-class shooting brake. Not my own limbs, obviously.

I like Mercedes' strategy; broadening the S-class brand, and integrating a few other things which use the same luxury (or even the same basic platform) but previously sold under a different badge.

No Maybach revival, eh? ;-)

I want one.

This obviously varies by location.

I'm based in the UK, where everybody has the bizarre habit of paying the actual price of the goods & services unless there's a good reason to add a gift, and staff are paid for their work through an actual payroll system, like in other industries. Nobody gives me £5 just for coming…

I think something could have got lost in translation. The mean transaction value is a lot lower than you would expect for new cars in Cuba. The reuters article isn't specifically about new cars. But the number of used-car transactions is much lower than you would expect for a country the size of Cuba, even if it has a…

There's a pic of what your car looks like, just in case you forgot after sitting down. Dodge thinks of everything!

Probably depends on location. In some countries, 4MATIC is very unusual (and certainly not available on an E-class).

The E63 AMG is a fine car, but maybe too bling. As much as I wish it weren't so, people very rarely get rich out of classical music, so we need to look for something more affordable. Volvo V70, perhaps? Or the Octavia, which has the musical connection too.

Maybe, but sometimes street racers kill other people, not just themselves.

On second thoughts, if Detroit Electric are going "asset light", does that mean they're actually subcontracting manufacturing to another business already in Leamington Spa? Ricardo, or Delphi?

I'm currently working with a client which is only a few miles from Leamington Spa.

Would you like me to drop in and see if this new site is empty too? :-)

Hooray for globalisation!

Why is the salute so important? It's OK for a president be focussed on running an entire country rather than paying lipservice to elaborate pseudomilitary ritual.

Definitely Longbridge.

My dad had a job driving trucks for a Rover supplier. One day he was sent to Longbridge with a truckful of transmission parts (clutches, I think) for Rovers. When he arrived, the guys at the warehouse very graciously stopped their card game (and smoking and, I assume, drinking) for a brief chat…

Welcome to the wonderful world of badge-engineering and licensed manufacturing! :-)

I'm not interested in discussions about post-death morality and respect for the dead, since such moral arguments always consume a lot of effort for very little useful marginal change in results.

However, mass burials do give us an insight into how the people were seen when alive. Mass graves are usually for un-people,…

I've put a couple of things in Google Calendar for next month, so nobody will ever suspect me of hijacking.

Shame? Shame???