Photo: Mercedes Benz
Audi want to become the biggest luxury automaker by the end of this decade, its main rivals obviously being BMW and Mercedes.
The three might have an unspoken truce in the speed wars that sees most cars they make limited to 250 km/h (155 mph). But that doesn’t mean they don’t take this rivalry seriously.
Yesterday, Audi and Ducati made a huge splash at all the news desks around the world, as the German automaker announced their 20-strong management board had voted to buy up the Italian superbike maker.
However, when it was first rumored that Ducati was for sale, we immediately turned our attention to Mercedes, as they have a marketing collaboration since 2010. This even resulted in a special edition SLK 55 AMG, the one you see in the picture above.
But Mercedes wasn’t in the bike-building mood and has now been forced to end the collaboration with a company that now belongs to a rival.
“Since the end of 2010 a successful marketing cooperation has existed between AMG and Ducati,” Mercedes-Benz said. “The company takeover by a rival car manufacturer has understandably resulted in the end of any further collaboration. The takeover of Ducati was never our aim – our focus lies clearly in developing and producing premium performance cars and we will be concentrating all our energy on this.”
Yesterday, Audi and Ducati made a huge splash at all the news desks around the world, as the German automaker announced their 20-strong management board had voted to buy up the Italian superbike maker.
However, when it was first rumored that Ducati was for sale, we immediately turned our attention to Mercedes, as they have a marketing collaboration since 2010. This even resulted in a special edition SLK 55 AMG, the one you see in the picture above.
But Mercedes wasn’t in the bike-building mood and has now been forced to end the collaboration with a company that now belongs to a rival.
“Since the end of 2010 a successful marketing cooperation has existed between AMG and Ducati,” Mercedes-Benz said. “The company takeover by a rival car manufacturer has understandably resulted in the end of any further collaboration. The takeover of Ducati was never our aim – our focus lies clearly in developing and producing premium performance cars and we will be concentrating all our energy on this.”
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