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Carsales Staff3 May 2008
NEWS

CN CONFIDENTIAL: Secret Benz business

Is that a secret Benz before me? Meanwhile, we tyred out and statistics get our backs up

Whether it's from the www, the latest motor show or the back doors of a carmaker near you, Carsales Network Confidential features the good oil other sources either won't publish, don't care about or don't know. Heard an automotive rumour or new model tip? Then let us know here


>> Mistaken identity?
Our friends at autoblog.com posted images of an interesting mystery car recently (see images hereabouts). Caught on the Nurburgring's webcam (see here) the vehicle caused some consternation as to its true identity. Various bloggers suggested it was everything from a Subaru to a Pug.


While the car is almost certainly a Veritas RS3 (a BMW-powered special), it could just be something substantially more interesting -- Mercedes' much-rumoured replacement for the SLR.


There's a heap of scuttlebutt surrounding the car, known under a number of names (most recently SLS), but we can let you in on a couple of close-held secrets. Remember you read it here first...


Not to be confused with the Black Series edition of the SL AMG (more here), the new car already has an official Mercedes model number, M268, and is set to debut at Geneva in March 2010. It also has a name -- 300 SL.


Yes, Mercedes will revive the iconic model designation with the car, although it gives no reference to engine capacity. Set to be powered by a much-modified version of the twin-turbo V8 AMG is developing as its next generation powertrain, the 300 SL engine will displace around 5.0-litres and pump out 430kW and 800Nm.


'300', it seems, is a reference the car's electronically limited top-speed!


Styling is described by our overseas Benz sources as "thoroughly modern, very retro" and recalls the lines of the original 1950-vintage 300 SL/SLR (pictured). Both Gullwing and open versions of the cars will be built, they say.


The decision on just where is to be finalised within weeks. Though it was initially thought McLaren cars could build the 300 SL in its SLR facility, that scenario is now less likely due to "politics", says our insider.


>> Retreads recycled
It sounds like the worst sort of environmental nightmare -- burning tyres to fuel a concrete plant! However, the Blue Circle Southern Cement plant at Waurn Ponds, near Geelong in Victoria is doing just that -- burning old tyres at 900 degrees C to generate power for the plant. The process leaves negligible waste and what few residual constituents remain are incorporated with gypsum in the cement-making process.


Previously, the Carsales Network had been unaware of this technology, but one of our sources at the launch of the Sumitomo HTR Z III tyre recently (more here), alerted us to this news. According to our contact, if 15 concrete plants around Australia adopted the same technology, it would neutralise our current problem with the disposal of old tyres.


Furthermore, it might make life just that little bit harder for those 'entrepreneurs' who are shipping old tyres off to third world countries in "40-foot containers", transferring a pollution problem from a developed nation to countries in southern Africa and parts of Asia.


>> Tyre industry should be regulated
Again, from a couple of different sources at the Sumitomo launch, comes word that the Australian market for tyres is not actually as carefully regulated as in countries such as Indonesia.


Granted, Indonesia is regulating the importation and marketing of tyres to protect the country's local manufacturing industry, but hey, Australia has a local tyre manufacturing industry too!


More to the point, anybody can import a container of tyres and set up shop selling them to the general public. Unlike cars, there are no requirements for type approval and certification of tyres. A huge concern, given no matter how good or safe your car is, it's the tyres that provide the contact point between car and road.


As one of our hosts at the Sumitomo launch said, pointing to the Commodores being used to benchmark the company's latest tyre against a competitor: "It doesn't take much to nobble Holden's 'Billion Dollar Baby'".


Some of the tyres being brought in are so cheap, they can't even generate the braking grip of local remanufactured retreads, tyre industry insiders claim.


One example cited applied to the taxi industry -- the industry most likely to buy tyres for the lowest possible price.


In a wet-weather braking test from 60km/h, OE tyres fitted to the test vehicles were pulling the car up in around 26 metres, while retreads were managing between 28 and 30 metres. The cheap and cheerful [Ed - read: crap] brands were sometimes struggling to achieve better than 33 metres.


Some of these tyres are being snapped up by the taxi industry for as low as $30 per unit.


As one of the Sumitomo PR execs told us, the majority of cost in a tyre is not the manufacturing or marketing, it's the development time that must be amortised.
How much development time do you reckon is factored into the price of a $30 tyre?


>> Hot buttons
Every manufacturer has hot buttons... With BMW it's runflat tyres; Holden goes all quivery when mention's made of Korean models; Nissan thinks it still builds passenger cars; Volvos are fun; smarts make sense, even in Australia; and Alfa Romeos and Fiats are now reliable. No, they are... Really!


With Audi, the hottest button is resale. Indeed, the maker has been at pains to reinforce the point its resale values have improved of late. It would contend the improvement has been marked.


At the recent launch of the new B8 A4, Audi went to the extent of trotting out graphs that showed the maker's outgoing B7 model A4 was performing well above the marketplace in terms of retained values. Suggested Audi: the 2005 A4's residual value sat at 64.74 per cent -- above BMW 3 Series' 62.76 per cent, Mercedes-Benz C-Class at 61.96 per cent and Lexus IS at just 59.49 per cent.


Like good little reporters, many of the hacks reported the 'news' as gospel. Indeed, you may well have read about it elsewhere.


Audi used Eurotax Glasses' values to determine the B7's performance. It did so, however, comparing the 2005 B7 A4 with the superseded 2005 model E46 318i, W203 C 180 K and first-gen compact Lexus, the IS200 Lexus.


No fair, Audi... We'll cop the W203, but the B7 is 'competing' against the E90 318i and Lexus IS250.


Thus for the sake of clarity -- for our colleagues, and our readers -- we asked Carsales' affiliate and recognised pricing expert, Redbook, to re-graph the data using 205 models of 'our' competitor set.


Using the same 2005 A4 2.0 Multitronic, but including comparable E90 3 Series, W203 C180 and IS250 Lexus models, the story is quite different. And just to be sure, we even averaged the entry-level, medium and upper level specifications of the A4, 3 Series, C-Class and IS.


The end result is the B7 A4's retained value has improved and is actually higher than Audi's claim at 68.33 per cent. But so are all the other makers' models.


In Redbook's reality the Audi's 68.33 per cent retained value is behind the 3 Series' 73.04 and C-Class' 72.30. Lexus lifts its game considerably too - instead of less than 60 per cent, Redbook rates the IS250's retained value at 65.70 per cent.


It just goes to show... In most parts of this automotive life, it pays to read the fine print... Our full retained graph is published hereabouts.


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