gr1nch
Senior Member
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2016
- Messages
- 93
- Reaction score
- 17
- Location
- Mons, Belgium & Ashford, Kent
- Your Mercedes
- W222 S350d AMG Line Premium Plus 2017 Iridium Silver over Black Nappa
In short, the factory tour is blooming brilliant!
Was there today for a 2 hr tour in English with a very knowledgeable 30-year staffer in a group of about 25. And if you own a Mercedes, find a way to take yourself down there in it; you'll not be disappointed! Some pics below, but none from inside the factory itself as photography there is strictly prohibited.
My new car pickup!
Ok, so maybe 120+ years goo late for that one, so found my new S350d there instead
Ok, I admit to driving it back there from the actual delivery in Grimsby, but this is what it *would* have looked like, except they'd be DE plates. The car looks small up against the star and chimney, eh?
Here's some pics of the customer centre as well as the new car pickup area (no more of me or my car, promise
)
The AMG Vision GT
The main desk when picking up your new car. It was quiet at that time as there were two more dedicated reception desk clusters not being used.
Looking towards the new car delivery area
Where received customers wait for their car, but I got the sense that VIPs or AMG customers wait on a swankier area up the stairs and overlooking the new car delivery area.
The new cars driven out one by one from the left, into the pickup area.
The bottleneck seemed to be the numbers of handover staff (seemed lightly staffed, with 1-2 customers with their new cars all the time we were there).
Having then gone outside, I realised some drive out, one by one, with the handover staff and take pictures in front of the building, with the huge star as background. Like this one....oops!
If you are planning to go sometime, DONT read on as I'm sure you'll like discovering lots of facts yourself on the day.
-------
Some interesting staff answers to my queries, hope I remembered them accurately!
* Customers ordering only in a very few countries can pick up there, inc Germany, USA, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands. UK we know is a no, as is France which surprised me.
* 80% of S-Class are ordered in black
* Majority leather colour is black
* Paint and sealant on an E-Class weighs 20kg!
* More and more body parts are glued together (specially produced by a Swiss supplier)
* A pink S-Class was built recently
- who will guess correctly which country the order came from?
* The robots do not perform identically. In the entire factory the number of robots swapped out is only one a year.
* The factory covers about 3km², 39k staff, 3 shifts round the clock 24x5
* Around 950 apprentices are training all the time for 2-3 years
* Has its own train line going to Bremerhaven
* The factory uses 1.5MW per hour from its own electricity substation
All in all a great day out, even though the tour was just two hours, spent around 4 hours there in total with a bit of photographing, shopping at the store, asking questions, looking around, etc.
What was really nice was our host asked us to attach behind and gave me and my wife and small souvenirs from her desk. Each of us has a key ring and S-Class USB stick with airfield video (I guess it's the officialone of the plant on YouTube)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* 2017 W222 S350d SWB AMG Line Premium Plus
* Ashford, Kent & Mons, Belgium
Sent from my Moto G using Tapatalk
Was there today for a 2 hr tour in English with a very knowledgeable 30-year staffer in a group of about 25. And if you own a Mercedes, find a way to take yourself down there in it; you'll not be disappointed! Some pics below, but none from inside the factory itself as photography there is strictly prohibited.
My new car pickup!
Here's some pics of the customer centre as well as the new car pickup area (no more of me or my car, promise
)The AMG Vision GT
The main desk when picking up your new car. It was quiet at that time as there were two more dedicated reception desk clusters not being used.
Looking towards the new car delivery area
Where received customers wait for their car, but I got the sense that VIPs or AMG customers wait on a swankier area up the stairs and overlooking the new car delivery area.
The new cars driven out one by one from the left, into the pickup area.
Having then gone outside, I realised some drive out, one by one, with the handover staff and take pictures in front of the building, with the huge star as background. Like this one....oops!
If you are planning to go sometime, DONT read on as I'm sure you'll like discovering lots of facts yourself on the day.
-------
Some interesting staff answers to my queries, hope I remembered them accurately!
* Customers ordering only in a very few countries can pick up there, inc Germany, USA, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands. UK we know is a no, as is France which surprised me.
* 80% of S-Class are ordered in black
* Majority leather colour is black
* Paint and sealant on an E-Class weighs 20kg!
* More and more body parts are glued together (specially produced by a Swiss supplier)
* A pink S-Class was built recently
- who will guess correctly which country the order came from?* The robots do not perform identically. In the entire factory the number of robots swapped out is only one a year.
* The factory covers about 3km², 39k staff, 3 shifts round the clock 24x5
* Around 950 apprentices are training all the time for 2-3 years
* Has its own train line going to Bremerhaven
* The factory uses 1.5MW per hour from its own electricity substation
All in all a great day out, even though the tour was just two hours, spent around 4 hours there in total with a bit of photographing, shopping at the store, asking questions, looking around, etc.
What was really nice was our host asked us to attach behind and gave me and my wife and small souvenirs from her desk. Each of us has a key ring and S-Class USB stick with airfield video (I guess it's the officialone of the plant on YouTube)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* 2017 W222 S350d SWB AMG Line Premium Plus
* Ashford, Kent & Mons, Belgium
Sent from my Moto G using Tapatalk
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