The Future of Aston Martin and Mercedes-Benz

The future of Aston Martin after Mercedes-Benz AMG. Many people may not have heard the recent business deal with the Mercedes-Benz AMG and the Aston Martin. The news is Mercedes-Benz AMG made business agreement with Aston Martin to provide electronics, telematics systems, engines and other things. 

I mentioned about this future marriage in my blog couple of weeks ago. And it is not a surprise at all, there was rumour of Mercedes and Aston Martin business deal for nearly half a decade and now they finalise it. 

Why Aston Martin needs +Mercedes-Benz? Very simple! +Aston Martin does not have enough cash to improve their cars and offer new technology and comfort features. You can easily understand this from the technological features of any Aston Martin, they are old! Aston Martin cannot offer seat ventilation, radar guided cruise control, pre-crash technology, seat massage, and new engines. However, Aston Martin offers the most authentic brand in automotive industry.

On the other hand Mercedes can offer any type of technology you can imagine or you cannot even imagine. However, the problem with Mercedes, their craftsmanship is not as close as to Aston Martin, their design is a bit boring, and Mercedes is not cool at all. When you add all these issues together and the sum is, Mercedes cannot offer a competitive vehicle for Bentley and Rolls Royce. And Maybach brand was failed really badly. So, Mercedes needs a British brand to find a place at the ultra luxury segment and this can be achieved only by engaging with Aston Martin. 

In future, Mercedes may buy the whole Aston Martin and it can be placed under the Daimler AG! And after that, we will see cars that never existed before. Can you imagine the Aston Martin Rapide with the new Mercedes S-Class technologies! I mean that would be fantastic, you have all the technology you need in a car and it is packed with a state-of-art craftsmanship with a way better design.

Don’t be shocked if Mercedes buy the whole Aston Martin and that’s not a bad idea either.

British Auto Legends stamp campaign

Check out what the postman dropped off yesterday: It's a bright red Royal Mail tool box, personally engraved with my name.
I am delighted to be invited to take part in the Royal Mail British Auto Legends stamp campaign - celebrating 10 of the most famous British classic marques:

Inside was a first day cover with letter, the new British Auto Legends stamp collection, a USB stick shaped like a key and containing all the information about the collection including the cars, a ticket for the Cheshire classic, vintage and sportscar show on thew 17-18 of August (which I was unable to attend) and finally, a small stainless steel forged spanner. 



The Thoroughbreds

1. Jaguar E-Type
2. Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow
3. Aston Martin DB5
4. MG MGB
5. Morgan Plus 8
6. Lotus Esprit

The Workhorses

1. Morris Minor Van
2. Austin FX4
3. Fords Anglie 105E
4. Land Rover Defender T10

The workhorses received a bit of flak from the Top Gear team, especially the Ford Anglia 105E, which was the favourite of the British police in the 1960s.

My favourite has to be the Aston Martin DB5, which became famous after appearing in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger. This car was launched in 1963 and had a 4-litre (3995cc) engine with 242bhp (5500rpm) and a top speed of 144mph (232kph).

Which one is your favourite classic car?

Visit their facebook page www.ifyouhadtopickone.com for a chance to win one of these great cars for a weekend.

Mercedes GLA Official Photos

Mercedes GLA is finally announced. Mercedes’s response to BMW X1 and Audi Q3. And GLA looks way better than the new M-Class! GLA shares the same platform with A-Class and shares the same interior, what a coincident! However, based on the press photos of the Mercedes GLA, the wood interior changed the atmosphere of the interior and makes the GLA more tempting than the ML!

Mercedes GLA will be offered front-wheel and four-wheel drive options. Engines are, GLA 200 with 1.6-lt petrol engine 156 HP and GLA 250 with 2.5-lt petrol engine 211 HP. The diesel options are, GLA 200 CDI with 2.2-lt 136 HP and GLA 250 CDI with 2.2-lt 170 HP. All the engines are coupled with a 7G-DCT double clutch automatic gearbox with ECO stop and go feature.

By the way, GLA does not look boring! Something went wrong in Mercedes headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. It is impossible to see a Mercedes that looks dynamic, I am definitely sure aliens captures the Mercedes design office and take control of the management, that's the only way I can explain the design of GLA :) Even the video looks fantastic!

Royal Mail British Auto Legends Stamps Delivery with a Jaguar E-Type

Royal Mail Auto Legends stamps. If you haven’t heard about this, it is the limited edition of stamps from Royal Mail to congratulate the iconic cars of British automotive industry. Personally, I am not a stamp collector but when I saw these stamps on internet, I was really excited to see them live. 

Hopefully, Royal Mail was very kind to send me. However, the sending process was totally different from what I thought. Honestly, I was expecting to receive the stamps via Royal Mail special delivery inside an envelope. And Royal Mail thought that, it is a bit boring way to delivery the stamps and they decided to use a red Jaguar E-Type for the delivery. I am not joking, Royal Mail arrived to my home with a red Jaguar E-Type to deliver these stamps. However, the story did not finish here!

The stamps were not inside an envelope, they were inside a bespoke made engraved red toolbox. Literally, this was the best PR campaign I have ever seen. The whole process was fantastic and left a great memory to remember in future. 

Anyway, let’s go back to British Auto Legends stamps. The stamps feature; Jaguar E-Type — 1961, MG MGB — 1962, Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow — 1965, Morgan Plus 8 — 1968, Aston Martin DB5 — 1963, and Lotus Esprit — 1976.

And the prices for British Auto Legends stamps start from as low as £5.64! And it will be a great collectors’ item in future. For the record, never send me an email to buy these stamps in year 2053. I am pretty sure that, I will at least a half-century and instead asking to buy the stamps from me. Go and buy them now :)

You can buy the British Auto Legends stamps from Royal Mail's online store.

Paris Hilton Cruises Around In A Ferrari F430

Paris Hilton shared a photo of herself in a friends Ferrari F430 Spider recently while vacationing in Ibiza. Fortunately, (or unfortunately for Paris) the paparazzi also caught some photos of her driving the Ferrari around town and from the looks of it, the front bumper needs some serious TLC. Question is, was it there before she borrowed the car or not? Pretty embarrassing either way...

Photo: Autoblog.nl

Chevrolet Vega

(Source: Oldride.com)
The Chevrolet Vega Kammback is rare, just like every other variant of the Vega. This might sound surprising, considering almost two million examples of this model were sold between 1970 and 1977. 
The reason for this is the horrible quality of the Vega. With rusting bodies and terribly engineered engines, Chevrolet's smallest model had a serious impact on the reputation of the brand. The example in the photo above was sold in 1975, when sales were already dropping, as the reliability issues became known. 
Probably the only reason for the people to still buy the Vega was its price. To keep it low, GM developed a unique system of transporting the new cars. By storing them vertically, they could fit 30 instead of 15 vehicles on each rail car. To make this possible, cars were fitted with an option the customer couldn't choose. It was called "Vert-A-Pac" and included modifications to the oil pan, the battery and some other parts to keep fluids from leaking. (Source:autoblog.com)

A Baker's Dozen...Roundup

Bakers live the life, don't they? Theirs is a world of cookies and pies and pastry filling. They get to wear checkered pants and a white smock...and that big, puffy hat...for some reason. Its like being an international spy except instead of pens that become blowguns and Aston Martins its all about lemon meringue and fondant. They wake up at 4am so that the rest of us can stuff our pieholes with doughnuts and eclairs to go with our lattes. My big, bloated chef's hat goes off to these dedicated men and women of the rolling pin. Say, do you know why they call it A Baker's Dozen? When you bake bread, you bake 13 loaves cuz inevitably one will go sour. Pitch it and you still have 12 to send to market. Actually, the origin of the term is far more sinister than that. It dates back to the reign of Henry II when a law passed that made it so bakers had to bake an extra loaf or else lose a hand...or an ear...or something. I don't know. What am I Encyclopedia Brittanica? I'm an American so this means I barely paid attention in European History class...or any class for that matter. My talent lies in art and writing, so watch me earn my art degree with this month's roundup called A Baker's Dozen, incidentally having nothing to do with baking bread or losing an ear, but having everything to do with building from a list of 13 vastly different and balls-out awesome automotive ideas. So you can follow along at home, these were the choices:

1. Any racing vehicle...that predates 1956
2. Any vehicle for or inspired by any superhero or villain
3. 60‘s and 70‘s era Show Rods...the crazier the better
4. Mars Society needs rovers of all types
5. Any vehicle from childhood cartoons...MASK, G.I. Joe, etc.
6. Any vehicle inspired by the new Legend of Chima line
7. Any contender for the 2014 SEMA car show
8. Any vehicle you want...customized for rock crawling
9. Any emergency vehicle...police, fire, ambulance, etc.
10. Any vehicle featured on Top Gear
11. Any tractor or combine harvester
12. Any amphibious vehicle
13. Zombie Apocalypse Killfest ‘2013...‘nuff said

How did we do? Let's see, shall we?

Mr. Koenigsegg starts up this little shindig and orders us up a #9...in this case a Police Corvette Z06 inspired by Need For Speed: Most Wanted. Its...you know...black and all police-y and stuff. Oh, remember when I was joking about kumquats? Well, I bought a batch and...well...they're way more sour than you'd think. We did make kumquat bread out of it, though.



For his second entry, Mr. Koenigsegg once again fires up his warm kitchen lights to photograph this grey Lamborghini Murcielago LP640, depicting #10. Its...you know...grey and all Murcielago-y and stuff. He tells us it comes Series 9, Episode 5 (2007). Is that the one where Hamster almost dies?



Next in line, TechnicNick goes with a #10, any vehicle featured on Top Gear. Its light weight and perfectly flat sides spells trouble for the beloved Citroen 2CV Charlston as we've seen one of these puppies blown over and demolished by a jet engine on that one episode of Top Gear. This is a great representation of the iconic little car.



Mars Society needs rovers and guess who answered the call. Agent WHO. Agent Who? WHO. No, but agent Who? Yes, Agent WHO. That's his name. Anyway, he build this ER-LS Mars Observation Rover for observing...uh...whatever shenanigans and goings on on Mars. So far nothing to report but some quick growing space fungus that wants to eat our face. Probably nothing important. Lets move on.



Legonoitallmocs shows that even renders can be overly exposed and superimposed onto a drab grey background with this pair of Aston Martin V8 Vantage police cars, depicting number 9: Any emergency vehicle. I have an emergency. I ran out of vodka and orange juice.



We may as well just call this roundup 9 or 10 cuz any emergency vehicle and any Top Gear vehicle are what people are picking. No exception to this people picking rule is Loek1990 with his render of 1998 BMW 528i Touring with the Top Gear Africa Special mods. Is that the one where Jeremy drives a Rolls Royce into a pool or the one where Walt cooks up his first batch of meth? I get my shows mixed up.



Finally, someone orders up something not from the value menu! Ralph Savelsberg goes with a #5, the Thunderhawk Camaro from MASK and in doing so totally ruins all of his childhood memories. See, Ralph was a big fan of the show as a kid, but now as a sensible adult he realizes the show was just a weak ploy to sell toys with silly plots and implausible physics. Good thing he didn't watch Rainbow Brite then.



Or My Little Pony for that matter...cuz that would make Ralph a Bronie. Speaking of bronies, his second entry features Jake and Elwood Blues with their Bluesmobile. Since its a former cop car it counts as a #9 since it still has got a cop motor, a four hundred and forty cubic inch plant, it's got cop tires, cop suspensions and cop shocks so its all good. Remember Ralph, it is and always will be bronies before honies.



New guy MadFirePhotographer lives up to his name somehow with this Mack CF Fire Engine, presumably depicting #9. I've checked and he really is a mad fire photographer whereas I fancy myself more of a mildly perturbed photographer of lakes. Something tells me he's a one-challenge type...or we can expect lots more mad fire photography from this one.



Certainly no one trick pony is Peter Blackert. Yesiree, he's in LUGNuts for the long haul with practically a baker's dozen entries of his own. (what, you couldn't squeeze out one more?) His first entry is a #9 Ford Explorer Police Pursuit Vehicle.



Hell yes, I remember Battle of the Planets! Any English speaking kid alive in 1978 knew full well the shenanigans of these five space-adventuring-orphan-super-hero-bird-themed...space orphan...guys. Depicted here is Jason's G2 Racer.



The super-hero-space-orphan-bird guys also had their more subdued albeit totally mod civilian hipster counterparts. This time the civilian ride for the character, Jason, an interpreted 1967 Pontiac Firebird Coupe.


S'more #5 action from Peter, this time Princess' Civilian ride is a standard 70's era sportbike...with her flared hipster bell-bottoms flapping in the breeze there.



Followed by her spaced out G3 Akira inspired motorcycle. Ahh the memories. I can still hear the opening theme music. You can hear the opening theme music too...if only they invented some sort of way to watch videos on the web. Some sort of tube site where you can watch...I don't know...shows from the 70's or maybe a monkey peeing in his own mouth.



But the technology for such a website is 50 years in the future, I'm sure. Too bad, really. But for now just enjoy the timeless beauty of this MotorCity Police Department - 1951 Mercury Eight.





This just in! A hostile space fungus from Mars just landed in Washington DC and declared that it wants all Earth made rovers off their planet immediately! And is demanding to eat the President's face! More news at 11. Oh and Peter also built this tow truck.



Next Peter adds some much needed Claas to this joint. (you saw that joke coming!) This time in the form of the CLAAS JAGUAR 900-Series Harvester, depicting # 11. Finally!



And another one fitted with the maize cob silage attachment for mowing down...uh...maize cob silage stuff. Peter tells us the Claas Distribution Center is on the way to work so occasionally he gets to stop in to talk to the nice friendly folks there.



I had a similar experience on the way to my work. While on the bus to work, I once saw a homeless guy bend over to throw up into the garbage can and he split his pants while he did it. I coulda gone my whole life without seeing that but no, I gotta live with that memory for all eternity now! Oh and Peter built an Alfa Romeo Giulia Berlina - 105 Series Italian police car.



Finally someone orders a #2, in this case, Peter's Iron Man themed Audi R8 monster truck. The monster truck aspect of it screams inbred redneck but the Audi R8 part demurely nods to performance and luxury. Its a dichotomy like sleeveless tuxedoes or ass-less pants.



Cripes, there's that memory again! They spilt all the way from like front belt loop to back belt loop. And his ass wasn't even clean, either, but you know...what else would you expect from a hobo puking into a can. Anyway, lets rid ourselves of this vision by thinking happy thoughts. Puppies. Balloons. Kittens. A miniland scale Mercedes-Benz W196R Rennwagen 'Monza' Streamliner used in the 1954-55 Formula One World Championship.



You know what's so sweet about this all-inclusive way of blogging?Fritz4783's mowing tractor gets equal billing. Hey, maybe I write about monkeys peeing in their own mouths and and space fungus eating your face but at least it gets you blogged, right? Try getting this over at our Big Brother's blog. Its almost cute in its naivety, this tractor.



And speaking of our Big Brothers, they seemed to have liked Lino Martins (hey, that's me!) Stars N'Stripes Divco depicting #7. And what's not to love about it? Patriotism and nostalgia are always big winning tickets at the SEMA show and here at LUGNuts. Its just too bad that my photo editing made it a bit too over-exposed. There were no sunny days in June here is Seattle so I had to overcompensate. I gotta get me a better photo booth!



Last but not least, Rolic finishes us all off with a 1949 Ferrari 166MM...a contender for the old-timey races. He tells us it took so long from build to post that he forgot the car's make and year. Yeah, that'll happen.



That's all of them, right? So...how did we do? I wanted variety with these 13 vastly different choices and variety is what I got. Sadly, no one even touched numbers 3,6,8,12, and 13. Oh, the possibilities! But if we wanted to see Amphicars or rock crawlers, we'll just have to wait another time. And those zombies lurking about aren't going to kill themselves, you know! Great, thanks to you people we have undead zombies who need to be...um...more dead. Anyway what's in store for next month? If we don't all die from a zombie infestation, its the drug fueled psychedelic acid trip we like to call Summer of '69...all about 60's era cars, trucks, and bikes. Its all about incense, peppermints, and peace and love to your fellow man. Will yours be a 6-fo Impala lowrider or a totally groovy VW bus? We'll just have to wait and see. I for one, have something totally balls-out awesome in store for you! Yep. So tune in next month, same bat time...same bat channel! Grooooooovy man, Grooooooooovvvvvvvy!