Benz: Right-hand drive green light

‘Available in left-hand drive only’ is set to become a phrase uttered far less often by Mercedes-Benz, the luxury manufacturer’s research and development chief is promising.

Speaking at the recent global reveal of the GLC compact SUV last week in Germany, Dr Thomas Weber said Benz’s goal of returning to number one sales status among the luxury brands globally and a much more flexible set of modular platforms ensured right-hand drive was feasible for almost all models going forward.

“We need right-hand drive vehicles it is clear,” Dr Weber told motoring.com.au. “It will be yes on a global basis.”

The launch of the GLC was an appropriate moment to make such a commitment considering its predecessor, the GLK, was only ever manufactured in left-hand drive, much to the annoyance of Benz’s Australia distribution operation, as well as other significant right-hand drive markets such as Great Britain and Japan.

The GLC goes on sale in Australia from December, finally providing Mercedes-Benz Australia with a direct competitor for the Audi Q5, BMW X3, Range Rover Evoque and the recently launched Land Rover Discovery Sport.

It will come with turbo-diesel and petrol drivetrains as well as a plug-in hybrid, while an AMG Sport 450 model and a full-blown AMG GLC 63 are also on the way.

“I would say yes, in principle always we will look in a little more detail if it (right-hand drive) really will be necessary for each and every single vehicle line-up.

“But in principle yes, because the right-hand drive vehicle markets are fast growing markets and … if we take in all markets with the clear target of being number one then we need right-hand drive solutions.

“Maybe at the end what are the limitations? Maybe not for all variants left and right-hand drive car line-ups will you have the whole portfolio on the engine side.”

Mercedes-Benz is currently number three in global sales versus Audi and leader BMW, but has vowed to become the biggest global luxury brand by 2020. It shapes as as a tough battle considering Audi has the same target and BMW has vowed to resist the push by its fellow German rivals.

“There was a time Mercedes played in the 700,000-per-year volume. Now we are about double, so the volume by itself is bigger,” confirmed Weber.

“And the other argument is our vehicle architecture has improved and is much more flexible and our modular architecture for the components is better so it is much easier in the meantime from the beginning … if there is a clear target to install left and right-hand drive.

Benz is gradually rolling its vehicles on to two main architectures; the front and all-wheel drive MFA architecture for A-Class and above and the rear and all-wheel drive MRA for C-Class and above.

Separately, Matthias Luhrs, Mercedes-Benz Cars vice-president of sales and product management and a former M-B Australia managing director in the early 2000s, emphasised to motoring.com.au how much more important the right-hand drive markets had become to Mercedes-Benz.

“The main driver for right-hand drive is the United Kingdom. In the UK we are 140,000 cars (sales) so we are at the edge of BMW, whereas it used to be three or four years ago we sold 80,000.

“So UK has made a big progress in terms of sales numbers. That helps for the right-hand drive development. And Japan – we used to do 30,000 and now we do 60,000. That obviously helped a lot.

“And in Australia we now sell 30,000 cars and when I was there we did 12,000 … Then you have countries like Thailand and Malaysia all selling volume today that Australia used to sell 10 years ago. They are all developing much faster than the US and Europe.”

Luhrs said the performance of Benz in Australia, where the three-pointed star leads BMW and Audi, had ensured a wider range of future products would be available here.

“Australia is a very important market for us. You can see that in all aspects. Profitability, sales volume, market share, dealer profitability – dealers are very happy. So it’s really on the map.

“So in development we are listening to what Australia is asking for. You will probably not get every single engine or derivative but I can’t think of any cars that you are not getting in Australia at the moment.”