The German car manufacturer, Mercedes Benz is planning to manufacture a coupe-styled, 4-door compact premium car at its new Hungarian manufacturing facility, about 100 km south of Budapest. Currently Mercedes Benz manufacturers the new B-class model in the same plant. Although a proper name for the car is yet to be decided, Mercedes Benz is currently calling it the CLA and is set to debut at the upcoming Beijing Motor Show in April.
According to Mercedes sales and marketing director Joachim Schmidt, the CLA is not just a compact car but a style coupe. It has been dubbed as the baby CLS by many after the company launched the larger CLS model back in 2004. With the CLS, Mercedes Benz created a niche market for coupe styled 4 door sedans, a segment later joined by the Audi A7 and the BMW 6 series. Diamler however refused to comment anything about the probable launch date of the car. According to some press reports, the production is expected to commence sometime at the end of the year.
Mercedes Benz wants to increase the profitability and boost demand to meet the new factory’s goal of 1.6 million vehicles by 2015. It also wants to lift its operating profit margin to at least 10 percent of sales in 2013 from 9 percent last year. To reach this goal, Mercedes Benz is not targeting the potential markets where is huge demand for such cars, namely India, China and United States by tailoring them for the local markets and expansion of sales networks. We hope Mercedes Benz brings this car to India very soon.
