I strongly doubt they'll kill the brand, at least not soon. In this market the impact on existing owners would be too much to deal with from a
PR perspective. Reducing the footprint and/or integrating with M-B dealers makes sense, but the way forward is to introduce marginally cheaper and substantially more expensive models. No doubt it's a failure, but it's just not easu to pull a Plymouth/ Oldsmobile (/Mercury) and shut the brand down altogether.