Visiting Mercedes-Benz at (Sweet) Home In Alabama
Desiree Landers Miller
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A lot of wonderful things happen in Alabama.
Among them are national championship football (at the University of Alabama), UA’s world class marching band, the Million Dollar Band, and destination golf courses that stretch from one end of the state to the other along the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. Oh, and some of the world’s greatest cars are built there, too.
Recently I was invited to tour the Tuscaloosa, Alabama, plant where Mercedes-Benz creates its ML-Class, R-Class, and GL-Class vehicles. The facility is in the midst of a $2.4 million dollar expansion to prepare for the new C-Class, which will also be made there, and in 2015, another vehicle will be produced out of this same plant.
Walking through the facility is an eye-opening experience and I was given a rare opportunity to take video and pictures while on the tour. It felt a little like watching Monsters, Inc, the movie where doors are manufactured, but in this case, it was car parts moving through the air, across assembly lines, being put together by robotic machines and overseen by thousands of hard workers. You can see our review of the GL class here and the M class here.
Enjoy the video I put together of the tour here.
If you ever make it to Tuscaloosa, stop by for a tour of your own. And, if you ever get a chance to go four wheeling, you should try that too.
An off road track near the Mercedes Benz plant puts the 4-MATIC four wheel drive system to the test
My visit to the Mercedes-Benz plant conicided with the Mercedes Benz Club of America during its annual national meetup just outside Tuscaloosa. There’s an off-road course right next to the plant that will blow your mind, and we got to ride along as a truck was put to the test off-road driving. It can be a bumpy ride, as most off-roading can, but it’s probably safe to say most people don’t drive up stairs, over rollers, or down the kind of incline that we tackled in the off-road course with the Mercedes-Benz ML-Class 4-MATIC experience.
