In 2014 the Stuttgart-based automotive brand is supporting the German POWER HORSE Triathlon Team, one of the worldwide leading professional teams within half- and long-distance, as an official partner, providing a new V-Class as team vehicle. “The supreme discipline of endurance sports makes an ideal match for our new V-Class. In the case of the triathlon, it all comes down to versatility and resilience, and making efficient use of your power reserves. All these are qualities which feature in our new V-Class too,” explained Bernd Stegmann, Head of Marketing at Mercedes-Benz Vans, commenting on the new commitment to the sport at the handover of the newV-Class to the POWER HORSE Triathlon Team.
Mercedes-Benz Supports Triathletes
Comprehensive range of possible applications make the V-Class the ideal companion for triathletes
The five-man POWER HORSE Triathlon Team is delighted to be receiving the new V-Class as a training and competition vehicle, and in future will display the Mercedes-Benz star on their time trial helmets. Eight-times IRONMAN champion Timo Bracht is particularly excited by the comprehensive range of possible applications for the new MPV: “As a father with two children and a particularly active, sporty lifestyle, the new V-Class meets my requirements perfectly. In future it will be really convenient for me to take all of my sports equipment to competitions, or even head off on the spur of the moment with my wife, the children and their friends for a weekend excursion.”
Team colleague Jan Raphael, the current European IRONMAN champion, is equally impressed by the flexibility of the new V-Class: “The spacious interior will enable the entire team to travel together to training camps and competitions in the future – the amount of space available makes this perfectly possible.”
The athletes of the POWER HORSE Triathlon Team supported by Mercedes-Benz are considered the favourites to take top honours in a variety of half- and long-distance triathlon competitions in 2014. Last year the athletes already achieved a number of victories at both national and international triathlon competitions.
With the new V-Class, Mercedes-Benz will also be acting as the official automotive partner of the IRONMAN European Tour for the 2014 and 2015 season. By providing such extensive support to the most famous European long-distance triathlon series, the premium automotive brand is reinforcing its claim that the V-Class is designed to appeal to people in a number of key international sales markets who are sports enthusiasts and highly active in their leisure time.
About the V-Class – the Mercedes among MPVs
The new V-Class is the ideal partner for people who enjoy sports and leisure activities: It boasts maximum flexibility and performance with the highest possible levels of safety and efficient energy consumption. In addition, it blends the generous amount of space and the functionality of an MPV with the hallmark strengths of a Mercedes-Benz passenger car. This makes the new V-Class the Mercedes among MPVs.
The interior enables the widest range of seating and loading configurations to be used to meet life’s wide variety of everyday requirements. In a few minutes it can be converted from a luggage compartment for several bicycles to a comfortable MPV for the whole family or for business partners. And the V-Class offers an extraordinary comfort experience – including the quietest and highest-quality interior in the segment, the most modern control and display system plus the best road roar and tyre vibration characteristics thanks to the AGILITY CONTROL suspension with its new frequency-selective damping.
Top performance is ensured by the ultramodern 2.1-litre four-cylinder diesel engine with two-stage turbocharging. The V 250 BlueTEC top model develops 140 kW (190 hp) and with a maximum torque of 440 Newton metres effortlessly achieves the output level of the previous V6 turbodiesel. Yet at 6.0 l per 100 km it consumes up to 28 percent less fuel. In the acceleration phases it even reaches an impressive figure of 480 newton metres. The V 250 BlueTEC sprints from 0 to 100 km/h in just 9.1 seconds. A total of eleven driver assistance systems also ensure exemplary safety.
