Originally Posted by bobs
Sorry, the grille doesn't work for me.
re: the poll. Here's my $.02: The VIN on our cars begins with "1C3", which means its a Chrysler. They may have borrowed drivetrain & suspension parts from the R170 & W211, but its still a Chrysler. Love it and drive it for what it is. I know I do. I have 53,000 mostly trouble-free miles on mine and don't plan on getting rid of it anytime soon. But whatever you do, please don't go around thinking you have a Mercedes-Benz, because you don't. My Crossfire feels positively primitive and unrefined compared to my W140 S Class (although the Crossifre definitely corners better!), but I love both cars.
If you want a Mercedes-Benz (VIN begins with "WDB"), then go buy one. You can pick up a good used one for less than $20,000 if you shop around.
Flame me if you want, but that's my take on it.
P.S. I saw this same syndrome when I worked for Harley-Davidson. Some guy would show up on one of those "custom" jobs and tell people its a Harley. No, it's a clone. It may have a knock-off Harley engines in it but its definitely not a Harley. Once again, the VIN tells the tale: "1HD1" = Genuine Harley-Davidson.
Well that sure is definatly an argument if you classify what a car is by vin than sure..
But in my oppinion a car is not a name, not a badge, not the seller, and most certainly not some legal information number (vin). A car is defined for me by those that built the car, those that designed the parts used for the car,.. and these people call themselves Mercedes-Benz, Karmann, or in some cases AMG... might even throw Bosch and some others in there, but definatly not Chrysler...
what has chrysler acctually done for the car someone enlighten me please?... all they did as far as I know is sell someone elses product with their stickers on them... it is like me buying a pack a malboros and putting a Sidez sticker on it claiming it is a Sidez product... imagine going to a store like Target and seeing every product in there ie. sony cameras, panasonic tvs all rebadged to "Target".. would not make much sense would it... cause all target is.. is a middleman for those companies... the same applies here..
PS. Pagani uses a Mercedes-AMG engine, and even though they acctualy did some of the tuning themselves to that AMG engine, Pagani has the desency not to rebadge that engine to something it is not... While Chrysler doing NOTHING for our engines easily covered them with pretty chrysler engine covers and tired to sell them as their own...