The radio is made by Becker, which is used in many European brand vehicles such as Porsche and MB. The company name is Harman/Becker and they are part of the Harman Group which includes AKG, Harman/Kardon, Infinity, JBL, Lexicon, and Soundcraft. Harman/Becker Automotive Systems GmbH is owned by US-based Harman International Industries Inc. Harman/Becker has no retail operations in the US and probably no repair facilities also. The Becker web side is www.becker.de. The Crossfire radio seems to be a much stripped down model of the radios shown on the web site. These European retail models have multi color dials, AM/FM plus LW and SW and can play MP3 disks. MB probably just told Becker to build a stripped down "cheapie" for the Crossfire to save $$.
The MB beancounters at DC have a weird attitude towards how to spend money on development and marketing. They seemed to say that they are beyond question because this is how MB does things so this must be right. Several European car manufacters have bombed in the US because they didn't adapt to the US car buyer.