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Mercedes touts future safety with research vehicle

In 1980, when several automakers began to use airbags, there were people who thought that cars couldn't possibly get any safer. Karl-Heinz Baumann, a safety researcher at Mercedes-Benz AG in Stuttgart, was not one of them. "We said, 'No, it cannot be all,' and we kept doing more research." The results of that research are presented on the company's most recent Experimental Safety Vehicle (ESV), on display now in the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart.

Golf Mk 6 bows out with new VW Golf R Cabriolet

Volkswagen is finally delivering the VW Golf R Cabriolet Mk 6, just as the Golf Mk 7 hits the road, but it does without 4WD. But it’s taken until now – 2013 and after the Mk 7 Golf arrived – for VW to fulfil the promise of more powerful open-top motoring in the Golf with the arrival – following a Golf R Cabrio tease video at the end of 2012 – to finally reveal it. Just as you’d expect, the Golf R Cabriolet is mechanically similar to the Golf R in that it gets the same 2.0 litre turbo four cylinder petrol engine that delivers its power through a six-speed dual-clutch auto box.

McLaren 650S revealed early

The McLaren 650S (pictured) arrives a little earlier than McLaren planned Just a few days age we had the first tease for the new McLaren 650S, a car McLaren said was aimed between the existing 12C and the hypercar McLaren P1. We speculated the 650S would be a tweaked 12C with more power and styling tweaks, and that’s exactly what it is. Driving has managed to publish the first official photos this morning (albeit in fairly low res) and it’s clear the 650S is the 12C with a healthy does of P1 mixed in for extra appeal.