Mercedes-Benz was the first luxury brand to have entered the premium vehicle segment in India and it did enjoy the benefits of its unrivaled existence then. But over the years brands like BMW and Audi entered the same segment of the market and as of today Mercedes has lost its numero uno position and has settled with the third place in the list.
Now to regain the top spot Mercedes is planning to get very aggressive and is going to launch a bunch of new cars in the market. To start with the company will launching Mercedes B-Class which then later be joined by Mercedes A-Class. Beside these two new models, another interesting piece of information reported AutoCarIndia is that the German car maker is working on two brand new compact SUVs for our market.
The smaller one of the two will be the Mercedes GLA SUV that will be positioned in direct competition with the BMW X1 and recently introduced Audi Q3. The car is based on Mercedes’ MFA platform featuring front wheel drive and transverse engine architecture. Sources say the car will be modern and appealing and will offer tremendous amount of cabin space. The styling is expected to have an influence of the A-Class but will be distinguished. On the interior the GLA and A-Class are said to share some components.
Unlike BMW or Audi that build their vehicles on extended wheelbase, Mercedes will build the GLA on the same 2700 mm wheelbase that A-Class and B-Class share. Since the car is based on the MFA platform the engine options are expected to be similar too. The suspension will have longer travel arms and a part-time all-wheel drive system could also be present in the car. This car will be priced between Rs.23 lakh and Rs.30 lakh.
The second SUV will be the new GLK Class. The current GLK is a left hand drive model and after unsuccessful attempts the company could not come out with a right hand drive model of the same. The reason behind the problem is a front drive shaft in the all-wheel drive model. A solution proposed recently was to sell the car with a rear wheel drive configuration but apparently the carmaker ruled out the same.
Now the second generation GLK. codenamed x205 is under development and will be out in 2015. And we are sure it will have a right hand drive option. Beside that the new GLK has a much longer wheelbase and a wider wheel track. Both the GLK and GLA are soon to arrive in India, so stay tuned for more updates on the two.
Source – Autocar India
