After 12-year-old Domeda Duncan toured this year's Detroit auto show, she said the vehicle she would most like to talk her mom into buying was the ritzy Mercedes-Benz Grand Sports Tourer Vision R -- basically a fantasy version of the minivan.
"I wouldn't mind being dropped off at school in this," said Domeda, then a seventh-grader at St. Cecilia Catholic School in Detroit and a member of the Detroit News Automotive Kids' Panel, as she eyed the TV screens built into the headrests and the roomy executive-style rear seats.
We have good news for Domeda and bad news for her mother. A version of the Vision R concept crossover is on sale this fall as a production vehicle, the six-passenger 2006 Mercedes-Benz R-Class.
After we spent a week in one, we agreed with our young critic: This is one impressive way to be hauled to junior high school. In many respects, the R-Class, with its cool postmodern styling, establishes a new benchmark for luxury people movers.
Just don't call it a minivan. Mercedes-Benz doesn't.
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