So as we already know, Mercedes has been giving mad incentives to move the R-Class, and even so, it's been falling short of original sales projections. Now it turns out they're refocusing their marketing efforts away from the original, intended target--coddled geriatric Boomers--and onto the one bright spot: young families.
Says one dealer of the up to $9,000 incentives--and the looming price cuts for the 2007 models--"The program has been good and aggressive. It's a tremendous family car that husbands aren't ashamed to drive." [emphasis added on the near-exact match to what our dealership guy told me when I first went for a test drive.]
While it's very generous of Mercedes to invite the kids-with-kids in their previously adults-only marketing table, it's too bad they didn't decide to offer a sweet, innovative car that was actually designed for young families in the first place... [cough B-Class, cough cough]
Shifting Focus [autoweek.com via dt reader jjdaddy]
Previous r-class and b-class coverage on dt
Never mind the B-Class (which IS a great car) but what about the Chrysler Pacifica? Yeah, it doesn't have the Mercedes name on it, and the engine is different, but for the price difference, you could buy another Pacifica for the wife and "pimp" both of them to a near-Benz level of luxury. :)
You could actually buy 3 Mazda5's with the navigation system built in!
The R-class is a Pacifica with different badging.