Jetta TDI

Mercedes-Benz Launches 4-Cylinder S Class

Are you ready for a four-cylinder Mercedes Benz S Class?

It seems unthinkable. The same number of cylinders in the big Mercedes that is in a Volkswagen Golf?

The German automaker is rolling out an S-class sedan called the S250 CDI, which has a four-cylinder diesel engine. Mercedes developed the car for Europe, which counts diesels about 40%-50% of new car sales, but so far does not plan to sell it in the U.S.

But that could change in future. Mercedes, BMW and Audi, as well as Volkswagen, have all brought diesels to the U.S.

The German car companies have long been champions of diesel for the U.S. But American consumers have stubbornly long memories of terrible defect-ridden diesels from General Motors in the late 1970s and 80s. The legacy of those cars is that politicians and regulators remain hostile or indifferent to diesel cars in terms of lowering taxes on diesel fuel at the pumps, as Europe did, and ease CO2 standards for diesels.

Tags: Audi Diesel, BMW Diesel, Diesel, Jetta TDI, Mercedes Benz, Mercedes Benz S Class, Mercedes S250 CDI

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Volkswagen Seeks To Recapture Brand Allure in Times Square With Jetta Launch

by David Kiley (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos, Events

Volkswagen of America today took over Times Square in Manhattan and employed singer Katy Perry to introduce the 2011 Jetta, a car that will be built at the company's Puebla Mexico plant and represents a new era for the German company in America.

The new Jetta, showcased in what VW of America CEO Stefan Jacoby called an "urban oasis" in the middle of Times Square, was greeted by a few thousand media, fans and tourists who were in the neighborhood.

The Volkswagen Jetta certainly does not qualify as premium or luxury in the traditional sense. After all, the new Jettas pricing starts at $16,000, even less than the starting price of the current model in showrooms today. But Volkswagen is a brand that represents what many marketing analysts call well positioned to take advantage of a trend that finds consumers who have previously bought luxury goods and brands trading down in price to brands that still have cachet.

"I am actually very enthusiastic about Volkswagen's strategy and opportunity if they can get the marketing and advertising image work right," says Los Angles-based marketing consultant Dennis Keene. "For a lot of people who perhaps previously were buying BMW 3 Series, Mercedes C Class and even Lexus ES 350s, well-packaged Volkswagens that still represent solid German engineering is a place people can trade down to in price without sacrificing brand acceptance."

Adds Keene, "In VW's heyday of the 1960s, people who were affluent owned Beetles and Karmann Ghias alongside much more expensive vehicles because of the social currency and relevance the brand carried...they can get back to that if they do things right," says Keene.

Tags: Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Jetta TDI, Katy Perry, Lamborghini, porsche, Stefan Jacoby, Volkswagen Jetta

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