The growth of mid-range 4×4s carries on apace, with the first official pictures and specifications coming from Mercedes.

This spurt in the mid-size 4×4 offerings is a very sensible move by the manufacturers. There is no way that the green lobby is going to stop the proliferation of 4×4s, but making smaller offerings is one way to take the edge of the ramblings about environmental damage. Anyone with a brain knows that the whole man-made climate change lobby is about as believable as the assertion in the seventies from the same ‘authoritative’ sources that we were about to slip in to an ice-age. But as long as the media continues to give coverage to the nonsense it is sensible to have options. And these smaller 4×4s are very good options.

I wrote a week ago about the new Q5 from Audi, and that for me seems to be the pick of the bunch. But Mercedes is playing the game with the new GLK. Expect to see the Mercedes GLK for sale in Europe, at least in its less powerful guises, before the end of the year. But don’t expect to see it here. Why, I hear you cry. Well, quite simply, Mercedes doesn’t think the UK market is important enough, so it’s made a car that will cost it a chunk of money to make in RHD form, so it’s going to let the sales run in the rest of the world to see how it goes. It’s is even apparantly considering a RWD only option for the UK. Shame on you Mercedes. The UK is one of your most important markets, and consumers won’t take kindly to being excluded from the GLK. They will simply opt for the Q5 and stary there. And that will mean a big trade-off when people consider other vehicles in the range. Once they’ve got used to Audi build quality and their exceptional interiors, a Mercedes is going to seem a much less enticing option. Not a good plan.

Anyway, what has the GLK got to offer. At launch expect to see an entry-level 2.1 diesel witn around 170bhp and 40+ mpg. In addition there will be 3.0 Diesel and a couple of petrol engines - a 3.0 and a 3.5. It is rumoured there will also be a GLK AMG63 at some point in the future. The usual range of sport and off-road options are available, as are a range of gearboxes. But none of that matters, because it won’t be coming to the UK until at least 2010.

Bad move, Mercedes.

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It’s been a busy week, and apart from the real kick of having a Ferrari 599 to play with, I had a couple of hours with the somewhat mad Mercedes C63 AMG (it would have been even madder if it had been a C55!). Now I’ve already said what a great engine this first ‘Real’ AMG engine is in the E63, but in the C63 it is a real hoot.

I can’t resist saying again what an incredibly linear wave of power this engine gives. It really doesn’t seem to matter what speed you are going, or what gear you are in, you just get what feels like an unstoppable wave of real acceleration and power. It is very intoxicating.

This car has really impressive handling. It is firm, yes, but with enough give to make it really comfortable. But it doesn’t affect the handling. It just makes it a much more pleasant place to be when you’re not thrashing around. That really is a great trick. Yes, it falls behind both its BMW and Audi rivals in a variety of areas, but absolutes are not what cars like these are about. They are about usability. These cars are usually bought as a main mode of transport. There needs to be compromise.

These C63s have been selling by the bucketful, and with justification. We’ve already sourced a few, and it seems we have just one Mercedes C63 AMG for sale left, so if this car floats your boat, be quick.

So, M3 or C63? That, just like the decision between the E63 and M5, is tough. And the same judgement keeps coming. C63 for the real world and M3 for a mad blat. I really can’t see it any other way.

Well done Mercedes. This is the best sporting car you’ve made in a generation.

The Mercedes SL in its current guise has been with us since 2002 (W230) and very successful it’s been too. I like this car a lot (Mercedes build quality allowing). It’s stylish, refined, powerful and immensely practical. But Mercedes are on a mission to update in 2008. So a face-lifted and tweaked SL is due to launch after the Geneva Motorshow in March, so look for the first new Mercedes SL for sale in April.

The SL facelift joins those already announced for the SLK & CLS, and it’s more of the same, rather than a new model. A face-lifted front that’s a cross between a 300SL and an SLR, plus updates to the interior and tweaks to the engine. A sort of ‘Half’ new model really.

I’m really not that sure about this new Mercedes nose, particularly on the SL. It seems to work better on the C and the CL than here. It makes the SL look less understated; brasher. I’m not sure that’s a good thing. The relatively understated looks compared to the performance (at least from the AMG) were what made the SL stand out from the competition. But it will sell. It always does.

There’s to be a new starting point with an SL280 (the first for a while), which gets a 228bhp V6, giving 0-60 in around 8.5 seconds and an average of 30mpg. Cheap posing. It also seems certain that the old SL55 AMG will make way for the SL63 AMG. It will be a shame to lose the old blower 55, but the 63 is a much better engine. And it will suit the SL down to the ground, with its seamless power delivery, which can at last be coupled to a more modern gearbox (which wasn’t possible in the 55 as its big peaks of torque would have shredded it).

So if you’ve landed here looking for a Mercedes SL55 amg for sale, I would hang on a few weeks and look for a Mercedes SL63 AMG for sale instead. Although, the SL55 is going to make one hell of a bargain buy next year!

There’s lots of column inches being written about the new C63 AMG at the moment, and with justification. It is a very good car. But I thought I’d have a re-visit with it’s big brother, the E63. We had 2 calls last week looking for a Mercedes E63 AMG for sale, and I realised I’d never driven one. It’s predecessor - the somewhat mad E55 - I’ve had a lark with on a few occasions, but never with the E63. Time to put things right.

Understated. I think that best describes the E63 AMG. A ‘Q’ car, if ever I saw one. Yes, it does sit a bit lower, and has a few body tweaks. But they are minor; subtle; understated. Mercedes have done this like Audi do. With taste. I like it. It’s nice to speak softly, but carry a big stick. And the E63 has a very big stick indeed.

I was sorry to see the blower 55 engine bow-out. It was mad as hatter, but great fun. On paper the new 63 almost seems a backward step. Until you drive one. I did that some time ago in the CLS, and I was very impressed. This is the first of the all AMG engines, and it shows. The different torque curve means it is possible to fit the latest 7-speed auto box, instead of the old 5 speed in the E55. And that made the car much smother, and much more responsive. Yes, as with all these clever auto boxes you do need to interfere to get the best, but this is a good box, and makes the car capable of being cruiser and blaster all wrapped up in one package. And the E63 (a 6.2 litre for goodness sake) gets very close to the M5 with this engine, and in many ways betters it. There is no substitute for cubic inches, and the Mercedes takes that trophy. And the power is there when you want it. No twiddling with badly designed i-drives. Just plant your foot and it goes. But if you want to cruise it does; the air suspension making the car very civilised around town. It’s hard to do that in an M5. There is no doubt that on a track, or in a mad cross-country dash I’d take the M5. But for everything else I’d take the E63. It really is that good.

0-60 comes up in not much more than 4.0 seconds and it handles very well. The air suspension really does work. But its party piece is the ability to really play hard and survive. Turn off the esp and this car is almost as mad as the E55. Tyre-burning standing starts with plumes of white smoke are entirely possible (so long as your bank balance can stand the tyre costs!), and proper slides are really easy (in the right place, please). But Mercedes don’t trust you completely. Take it too far and you can feel the electronics coming to the rescue, even with the esp off. Probably sensible. There is a huge amount of latitude before you get reined back - just about the point where your skill fails to reach your ambition!

A good car this. Loads of room; nicely understated; good handling; accessible performance. As good as it gets in this sector for all-round usability.

Oh, and it seems to be properly bolted together!

Happy New Year! I know, it’s the most predictable opening possible, but it’s meant. The New Year is always a good time to look at the positives. Yes, the world is full of nasties, large and small, waiting to bite us when we least expect, but the New Year is a great time to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative (thank you Johnny Mercer). And a good time to improve on what you do. So that’s what we’re going to do!

We’ve had lots of emails this last year asking for more test reports on the cars we supply, so being an accommodating chap I’ve decided that is what we’ll do. And of course it has nothing at all to do with the fact I will be able to go and play more than I do now and call it work. It’s entirely altruistic! We’ll still do the news and comment stuff, but a few more ‘Views’ won’t go amiss. We’re aiming for at least one a week. Not necessarily the latest ‘hot off the press’ stuff, but a good cross-section of what we sell. I’ll just have to find an extra day a week to go driving. Shame!

Mercedes announced last week that there is to be a revised version of the SLK in the spring, and have now released information on the Mercedes SLK 55 AMG for sale in April as well. This is probably the prettiest of the small convertibles, and I’m pleased to see that Mercedes have resisted the temptation to meddle too much. There are a few cosmetic changes and tidying up, and the engines in the smaller versions get nicely tweaked, but there’s no engine change to the AMG. Which is a shame. As the other vehicles in the Mercedes range using the supercharged version of the 55 move to bigger engines, it would have been nice to see the pocket-rocket get the full-fat version of the 55. But I suppose that would make it just too desirable and take sales from the rest of the range. Shame really, but it is still a very impressive little car.

With a sub 5 second 0-60 time, and an incredibly rigid body, this car can teach the Boxster a thing or two. It’s not as well made, but it is huge fun, and the tweaks to the suspension and gearbox should only add to the fun. If you want an easy to drive, very quick and cleverly packaged weekend toy you can’t do much better than this for the money. At a little over £50k plus the extras, the SLK 55 AMG offers huge performance for the money.

I wish they’d do a blower version though!

Have you got a Lamborghini for sale? It’s a common cry from the Everton FC lads! They do love their motors. But that’s closely followed by a request for a Ferrari, an Audi Q7, a Mercedes AMG, a…..!

As you probably know, we started out providing cars for professional footballers, and that’s still an important part of our business. That’s something Hugh gets very involved in (he was a professional footballer after all, and his dad is still a coach at Liverpool FC), but he also gets involved personally with anyone who needs his services. Good lad. That means his hands-on approach now covers not just professional footballers, but sports professionals in Rugby, Cricket, Golf, Tennis…..! And he’s also learnt that entertainment professionals and business people want the same hands-on, discreet approach. So all that time he spent running round when the business was new has paid dividends now we have such a diverse range of clients.

Most of our clients are a little publicity-shy when it comes to personal purchases in particular, so it’s really nice when they get in touch to tell us what a great job we’ve done for them, and that they’d be happy to stand up and be counted as very happy Innovation Cars customers. And that’s what happened last week when three Everton Players - James Beattie (although he’s actually just moved off to Sheffield United), Tim Cahill and Lee Carsley - got in touch to tell us they were very happy bunnies!

James Beattie, along with a lot of our customers, has a real love for the Lamborghini Gallardo. Good choice, James - one of our favourites. He also had an Audi Q7 (for when he needs a little more space!). Tim Cahill also had a Lamborghini and Lee Carsley joined in with a Q7 and a Mercedes CLS. Good choices all round, and thank you lads for your support.

I used to be a real Mercedes Benz fan. I enjoyed the build quality; the ‘unbreakable’ feeling you got whatever you did. I had two S500s, one after another. This was the last of the ‘proper’ Mercedes in my eyes (the W140 version for those ‘anoraks’ amongst you). I drove more than 500,000 miles in those two barges, and I never once got out complaining of a bad back (even though I do have a bad back as a result of teenage folly when I had a coming together - whilst running across the road to catch a bus - with an MG doing 45mph past my school!). Wherever I went, and whatever I did, I only had one problem in the whole half a million miles, and that was a lambda probe packing up - but the car still went in to ‘limp-home’ mode and got me to the garage. So I was a fan, and I looked forward to the then upcoming S class - the W220.

Although I did have only one mechanical glitch in all those miles, I also had one prang. Early one Saturday afternoon, whilst driving my then 13 year old daughter somewhere she had to go, for the umpteenth time that week, we were ambling (or as much as I ever amble) round country lanes in Fryerning (a pretty part of that much maligned county, Essex) when an erratic Sierra came flying round the bend, on my side of the road, with the driver merrily pointing out something in the nearby shrubbery to his equally distracted passenger! Not a good moment. Well, to cut a long story short I decided that discretion was definitely the better part of valour and I tipped us into the nearside ditch (it seemed the sensible alternative to a head-on with ‘Essex Man’). The damage was mostly underneath and, to be fair to ‘Essex Man’, he held his hands up to his responsibility (being a smart-arse I did manage to ‘tape’ his confession on the Dictaphone - just in case) and we crabbed off to the garage to survey the damage.

Now those nice people at Bristol & London, who offer like-for-like replacements for no fault accidents, stepped in to the breach and had a shiny CL500 whisked down the motorway from Bristol in just a few hours as a replacement. Right up my street - someone else’s car to play with, and a chance to live with the coupé version of the new ‘S’, and see how it compared over a few weeks to my old ‘S’ (Mercedes do not mend cars very quickly). But it broke. Two days in and the suspension packed up. And I hadn’t even driven it that hard. So off it went to the local Mercedes dealer and they fixed it. Back again for three days - same again. That’s when I fell out of love with Mercedes. To be fair to Bristol and London they offered me a brand new 911 for the rest of the time (which turned in to 3 months - I told you Mercedes aren’t very quick!), and that 3 months helped me decide that Porsches were built like my old W140 - to last.

So for the last few years I’ve driven a Cayenne. It really is the perfect ‘compromise’ car. It does everything so well. It drives like an M5 (none of that pitching and rolling you get in most SUVs), you get the high driving position, great performance and handling (really astonishing handling for such a car) and the bullet-proof build quality. And, short of running a Range Rover and an Aston (no, Mr Bank Manager, I’m not seriously considering it) it seemed I would stick with the Cayenne for some time. But blow me down, Mercedes have once again built a car that feels as bullet-proof as my old S500.

The new CL600 is a magic-carpet, grand tourer aimed fairly and squarely at the Bentley Continental GT, and a remarkably good car it is too. Unlike its V8-engined counterparts, this silky-smooth V12 wasn’t designed to snort and growl. Instead, it has the ability to generate warp-mode at the merest touch on the throttle. No fuss - no noise - just instant blurred scenery. It’s even got that old Bentley favourite - column-change (or at least the modern version of it), and it feels like it’s made from a solid piece of Titanium. It handles, it’s well built and it’s astonishingly swift. Oh, and quite remarkably for big Mercedes coupés, it’s very pretty (from most angles).

Hats-off Mercedes. You’ve actually built a car that seems as well-made as the reputation you so deservedly once had.

The Mercedes Benz Black Series gathers pace, this time with the launch of the SLK55 version.

This is a hard-core version of the standard SLK55 pocket-rocket - more akin to a track car than a road car. Weight falls by around 100lbs, mainly by changing the trick-roof for a fixed version. It would have been more, but the SLK gets beefier brakes and suspension and 19″ wheels to cope with the extra power - up by 40bhp to 400 bhp. The 0-60 time drops to just 4.5 seconds, and the top speed is an unrestricted 173mph.
There are going to be precious few of these cars available (AMG is only expected to make 10 a month available) and with prices starting from around £62,000 they’re not cheap.

This is a car very much for the driving enthusiast. It’s a hard-core track machine that’s road legal. It should be great fun to drive, but not ideal for popping to Waitrose! It does have a reasonable options list (leather etc), so you can make it more comfortable, and apart from the obvious black it’s also available in silver.

The Black Series cars from AMG seem to be coming on stream (we had the C version a little while ago) and no doubt we’ll see a version throughout much of the Mercedes model range in time. They are very impressive cars, aimed at showing just what AMG can do, and are perhaps a precursor to an all AMG model in the not too distant future (it is rumoured that the eventual replacement for the mighty SLR will be an entirely AMG vehicle).

We wouldn’t recommend one of these as your everyday car, but what a hoot to have one to play with at the weekends!