Only the very rich need apply

ALASTAIR SLOANE comes across a couple of Mercs that are too posh even for PlayStation.


Someone once said that the difference between Mercedes-Benz and BMW was simple: you took a Mercedes-Benz to a summit meeting with Tony Blair and Bill Clinton - and a BMW to a rock concert with the Rolling Stones and David Bowie.

The car with the three-pointed star oozes power and prestige; the BMW passion and panache.

Things are still pretty much the same, although Mercedes-Benz has over the past few years dialled in some passion to go with the prestige.

It had to. It was watching the young professionals it so wanted to attract driving around in 3-Series BMWs.

A Mercedes-Benz only a decade ago was an "establishment" car, driven by people whom Janis Joplin, had the Lord bought her one, probably wouldn't have had much in common with anyway. Its owners on average were 10 years older than BMW drivers.

Now, 10 years on, the difference is five years. BMW owners are getting older; Mercedes-Benz owners are getting younger.

This makes Mercedes-Benz very happy indeed; it has deliberately been building cars aimed at cracking the younger market. Its marketing people have talked of little else.

But BMW is not entirely happy with its lot, even though many of its older owners traded in a Mercedes-Benz.

Older buyers are important but they tend to keep their cars longer - and their buying future runs out quicker.

The longer-term younger market is where the money and potential brand loyalty lies. And brand loyalty especially starts at a young age.

Said Peter Robinson, columnist for Autocar magazine: "There's a growing realisation in Munich (BMW headquarters) that unless BMW comes up with an affordable, very quick sports saloon - a European rival for the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI and Subaru Impreza WRX STi, if you like - the PlayStation generation will think of BMWs as old men's cars.

"Don't underestimate the significance of the hugely popular, car-based computer games. Every smart carmaker wants their latest toy to feature in games, reasoning that there is certain to be a positive effect on their image and, eventually, sales."

Robinson's point is important - ask any teenager with a PlayStation. BMW cars don't figure as prominently in PlayStation games as Mercedes-Benz.

But that will change early next year with the release of Grand Turismo II. Perhaps BMW has been listening to critics like Robinson, because GTII includes six Mercs - and eight BMWs.

But one Mercedes-Benz model which won't make it to PlayStation - unless it's a digitised version of Monopoly, with international brokers in flash cars - is the CL 500, the 5-litre V8 coupe version of the flagship S-Class.

It arrived in Auckland the other day, a sleek $236,000 hustler with a mix of menace aimed smack bang at the very rich. The 6-litre V12 model is due early next year, at $279,000.

And like the four-door S-Class - the best luxury car going - both CL models come with everything that opens and shuts, every electronic safety feature imaginable, including Active Body Control, a computerised hydraulic suspension system that basically smooths out the road, cornering stresses and all.

The V8 and V12 engines are a bit special too, with optional cutoff functions to save fuel. On a lazy run at 100 km/h down the Southern Motorway the V8 will cruise on four cylinders, the V12 on six. The others will cut in under throttle.

Another nifty feature are the doors, specially hinged to swing open wide of the car's body and so create a wide aperture to aid entry and exit.

Both models will soon have a radio transmitter on each tyre. It is not a little aerial attached to the rim and spinning faster than the eye can see but rather a sensor installed in the tyre valve to constantly measure both the air pressure and temperature.

Mercedes-Benz' boss Jurgen Hubbert reckons the CL range is the bee's knees. "With the new CL, the Mercedes-Benz car model range has reached yet another summit [there's that word again].

"The coupe is the fascinating result of the same development philosophy that has already proved successful in the new S-Class: agility and elegance in the visual lines with leading edge technical features."

The CL would certainly fit the bill at a summit - it could even park alongside a BMW at a rock concert.