I Spy a Square

Autoguide are showing us some spy pics of the 2019 Merc GLE on test in the US:

I don't like Spy Pics - I may have mentioned this several times before.

 

But these ones do have a couple of interesting things about them.

 

Like the fact it is a right-hand drive car.

 

Why on Earth would a German manufacturer testing in The US use a RHD car?

And no, they are not reversed photographs.

 

The other thing is the pixilation of the driver.  You wouldn't be able to see the driver's face so why hide the clothes and, presumably, skin colour?

 

Unless the test-driver was naughty and took a bung to allow the photography to take place so didn't want any way of being identified.

 

Nah. I'm sure Mercedes know who is driving their disguised RHD car past Dennys in these photos.

 

But just in case they don't, there is a vital clue in this photo:

The driver is wearing blue jeans.

Mercedes or Rolls?

Both actually.

As someone who has previously noted how much I hate the Merc GLE Coupe, I can only congratulate the idiot who rolled this one.  It's an AMG too - but that doesn't stop it looking stupid.

 

I also hate the fact that Car+Driver have made their Website inaccessible to those of us in the UK (and probably other places too) which means a lot of my previous links won't work any more and I'd lost a valuable source of motoring news.

 

Until I combined their Spanish output with Google Translate:

 

Et Voila!

 

Sorry, that's French. Talking of France...

 

The Spanish-language version of Car+Driver is where I found this story about a guy in France who rented this GLE for a Wedding, and got over-excited going around a roundabout.  Here's the YouTube version:

Le cercle de la sorrow.

World "Put Your Mercedes on its Side" Week.

Mail stories on consecutive days.

Sunday brought us this one from America.

 

A woman taking a test-drive did this.  I suspect it was an automatic and I suspect she decided not to buy.  It's probably a GLE or a GLS but given Mercedes naming conventions it could be anything.

The cause of Monday's crash was a cat. Here's the story.

It involves our own Radio 1 DJ, Nick Grimshaw and a G-Wagen.  The BBC Newsbeat story is much better than the Mail one since we learn more about the cat:

"The cat's fine. It sat there for the full two hours while I was out in the street,"

"The cat met the police, the cat met the fire brigade, the cat watched me make a call to insurance to organise someone to pick the car up."

The cat's views on SUVs were not reported but it is interesting that people buy them thinking they are safer than ordinary cars but they are more likely to topple over.

Grim.