Business Notes Autos

A favorite car of fat cats now seems to be suffering from a weight problem of its own. Mercedes-Benz heralded its new "S-class" autos as "the best cars in the world" when they were launched in March, a pointed dig at newly arrived Japanese rivals in the luxury market. But the S-class dream car has collided with the no-kidding-around standards of the German government, which require car companies to declare the "gross weight" of their models in actual use. Auto Motor und Sport, an industry magazine based in Stuttgart, pointed out that when a Mercedes 300SE is loaded with such hefty but popular options as air-conditioning and an automatic transmission, only 576 lbs. worth of frills like passengers and their luggage brings the car up to its registered gross weight of about three tons. That has provoked much German ridicule for the obese auto; an Auto Motor und Sport reader observed that the new car would be useful only for carrying four toothbrush-wielding dwarfs to a nudist colony. The embarrassed automaker solved the problem with paper- shuffling panache, persuading the government to add 308 lbs. to the car's official weight.