One thing I have been wondering about this "segment-buster" of a car is exactly how well it's been selling. Normally I live in civilization (New Haven County, CT), so I can see how well the new Benzes are selling, but I'm at college right now, in Allegany County, NY. If you don't know where it is, neither does anybody else. It's basically in the boonies, and I can't judge sales. Anybody know how well the R-Class has been selling? Especially considering that MB just came out with the R63 AMG

Well, down here I've seen plenty of R's, but not as many as say the new ML when it launched. So I think it's not doing so well.
My guess is that it's just a fancy mini van in everyone's eyes and not too many people are convinced of the new segment MB is trying to make.
Another thing is that I think it's just too expensive for an average Joe. You can get a decent Dodge mini van for so much less.

I've seen a few here in San Francisco, but not even close to the number of MLs. I think Yaz is right about lots of people thinking that the R is like a fancy/expensive minivan.

I see about 20 SL55/SL65 for every R on the road here, in fact I see more SLRs than R class around.

The R-Class isn't selling well at all, way below Mercedes' projections.

M

I think one of the reasons is it's simply not priced well. It should have a slight premium over the M-class, not nearly 8k.

I never seen the R-class but I see a lot of B-classes

Well I think price is definitely a problem, but on the U.S. boards the styling is a major turn off too. It looked so much better when it was the GST Vision concept, it clearly lost something in production form. The interior isn't up to the pricetag either IMO.

M

R-Class sales in the U.S.

2005

Sept - 386 (debuted in mid-Sept, only 2 weeks on the market)
Oct - 930 (first full month)
Nov - 1213
Dec - 2430 (a typical high-volume month due to special lease deals on all MBs)

2006
Jan - 686
Feb - 2469 <--- Whoa!
Mar - 1915
Apr - 1672
May -1485
Jun - 1445
July -1485
Aug - 1698
Sep - 1276
Oct - 1216

The next few months will really tell the story of the R-Class in the U.S. Sales were steadily increasing from Sept to Dec, but Jan fell a lot. Typically Jan is a slow month for Mercedes in the U.S. due to all the special lease deals being pulled and little to no advertising.

Mercedes would like that Dec 2005 figure to be the norm, won't happen.

M

Than i'm asking you how do they think they're gonna sell AMG version? They aren't selling cheapest versions how they should, let alone AMG.