What the CLA Means to Mercedes-Benz in India

A lot was said about Mercedes-Benz when Audi and BMW rose to the top. This change in positions caused the Stuttgart-based German car manufacturer to suffer in terms of sales, and eventually lose the top spot. Everytime it was confronted with the question of what went wrong, Mercedes-Benz maintained that it was merely a setback that they will certainly recover from.

Keeping with that statement, the past year has been the 'year of the offense' for Mercedes-Benz and it is leaving no stone unturned to make things better. It started with the introduction of the B-Class, which was then followed by the A-Class and then a whole bunch of updates to its cars; from the E-Class to the most luxurious S-Class, the ML, GL and the G-Wagen, all of them were rather lucratively refurbished.

Well, all these cars have new faces now, so Mercedes is quite up to the mark as far as product updation is concerned. Then there are the AMG versions of all of them, and they are undeniably the neatest bunch of heart-throbs. So I wonder what's next for the company. It says - the CLA.

It doesn't come as a surprise that the CLA will first arrive in India in the AMG avatar. The CLA 45 AMG will cost about Rs. 75 lakhs, and will give a rather lavish preview of the non-AMG version, which will hit the Indian markets in 2015. The CLA is a significant step for Mercedes since it will announce them into a segment that hasn't been tapped yet. Also, there are a whole bunch of customers who can't wait to get their hands on a sedan that is luxurious, looks good and is one of the Germans (Audi, BMW or Mercedes).

Also Read: Mercedes-Benz CLA 45 AMG Review

The CLA certainly looks good and we are sure that the engine options that it'll be offered with will attract a lot of attention. However, Mercedes is not the only one eyeing the entry-level luxury sedan space. Audi is all set to launch the A3 sedan in India next month, and this gives them a head start of nearly 6-7 months. We drove the Audi A3 recently and came back impressed; it looks good, comes packed with loads of features. The only drawback, I suppose, will be its rather premium price-tag and that's exactly where Mercedes-Benz can have the upper hand.

Also Read: We reviewed the Audi A3 for you

If you are wondering where BMW figures in this, we don't really know either. For now, it only has the 1 Series, but that's a hatchback. However, we did come across rumours that spoke of the impending arrival of a 1 Series sedan. But that's just gossip; one also needs to consider the fact that the 1 Series sedan will only be for the Indian market and will eventually incur quite a handful of costs.

So for now, the CLA has only one rival and that's the Audi A3. It will eventually boil down to the features and the package that Mercedes-Benz has to offer. However, Mercedes-Benz will have to concede to Audi for the time being since the A3 got a head start over the CLA. That said, we can olnly wait to see how the Indian crowd takes to the CLA.

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