Over are the days of Apple CEO Steve Jobs being assisted by mysterious men in black suits and the occasional helping hand from Jonathan Ive. El Jobso is now taking his own car to work, which leads me to believe that is recovery from liver transplant surgery is moving along just fine.
At least now he has an excuse to park in the handicapped spots. Live long and prosper, Steve Jobs.
If you’ve got some extra cash burning a hole in your pocket and you’re a fan of fast, luxurious cars, may I recommend checking out the new Mercedes Benz AMG Driving Academy that’s been set up in Lime Rock, Connecticut and Palm Beach, Florida. For a little under two grand, you can spend a day driving AMG-tuned (sorry, no BRABUS) Mercedes models like the C63, SLK55, SL63, CLK 63 Black Series and the new E63 AMG. People who want the full experience can shell out more cash for a two day program that will have you doing burnouts and spinning across the track all day long. Anyone have $2000 I can borrow?
When most people see a Mercedes and think of performance tuning, the letters “AMG” come to mind. Understandable, but what most people tend to overlook is a little company based in Germany called BRABUS. You want your car tuned to the max? You go and visit BRABUS. Take, for instance, the 2009 Mercedes E-Class Coupe. BRABUS will turn the standard V8 engine into a 6.2-liter, 462 horsepower monster that’s capable of doing 196 MPH. Droolworthy? By all means, but remember: BRABUS tuning costs nearly twice as much as an AMG sport package. Actually, make that thousands more since this particular package costs a staggering $39,000 in addition to the base price of the car.
For those of you not familiar with Maybach, it’s an extreme luxury car produced by Daimler/Mercedes that’s designed for the wealthiest of people. The latest model, the Landaulet, was announced last year and will now be available for order since the car is hand-built. At $1.4 million, you’ll discover that it’s one of the most expensive cars on the planet.
But the Landaulet has a feature that will blow any other vehicle out of the water. The back seats can enjoy a retractable hardtop roof allowing for the back of the car to remain a convertible while the front is protected from the elements. Truly a stunning feature. All the rest of the Maybach nonsense will be on hand, like the seats that recline and Grand Napa leather. If you save up enough Pepsi Points to buy one, let us know how it handles.
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Smart, that lovely micro car company that everyone adores, is currently working on an all-electric version of the Smart ForTwo called the Smart Ed in London. While that’s all fine and dandy, just wait till you get a load of some of these numbers that Smart has put out during testing.
An 8-hour charge gets up to 72 miles of travel at up to 60 mph, and the makers suggest a lunchtime top up to get 100 miles a day.
Not bad at all! To boot, Smart claims the car will get the equivalent of 300 mpg. All by plugging into your standard electrical socket. If the Smart Ed makes it to the US, I doubt Mercedes/Daimler will be able to meet the demand. Considering you could use anyone’s electric to recharge your vehicle, you’d essentially be driving for free.
You never know what you’ll find when playing around with the 360-degree street view feature on Google Maps. For example, here is something spotted that we’re sure isn’t an experience that is to be remembered as a happy one.
For some reason, someone (a woman no doubt) decided to slam her Mercedes into a pole, exactly where the panorama camera was set for taking photos. Did that stop the people over at Google? Psh, as if! Snap, snap. You got served. — Andrew Dobrow
