Some very good news for Mercedes-Benz:
The Alabama-built Mercedes-Benz R-Class crossover reversed a longtime trend of sagging U.S. sales in June, posting an 18 percent rise over its year-ago results. The German automaker said today that it sold 680 R-Class vehicles last month, compared to 576 in June 2008. For the year so far, R-Class sales trail 2008 by 58.4 percent. – from AL
The R-Class is a multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) offered by Daimler AG in 2006 model year under the Mercedes-Benz brand. It is the first full-sized multi-purpose vehicle ever produced by Mercedes-Benz. It was first seen at the 2001 Detroit Auto Show as the Vision GST (Grand Sports Tourer) concept, and the final production vehicle was shown at the 2005 New York International Auto Show. The R-Class is built on the V251 chassis, and is assembled in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and Mexico City. It is priced between the M-Class and the GL-Class. It was initially marketed by Mercedes-Benz as a “Sports Cruiser” and later as a “Family Tourer”.