C-Class dominates

In one fell stroke, the W204 C-Class Mercedes has decisively captured the sales lead in the Australian market segment for medium cars above $60,000, according to VFACTS figures.

From a low base of just 268 units in July, the C-Class hurdled over the Lexus IS250 and the BMW 3 Series with a sales figure of 574 for August -- more than doubling the sales for the previous month, and accounting for almost a third of sales in the segment.

The difference in C-Class sales arose from the introduction of the new W204 model early in August. According to figures supplied by Mercedes-Benz, barely six per cent of sales in August were the older W203 generation C-Class models.

To find a performance to top that, you'd have to look at Toyota's Kluger, which literally quadrupled the previous month's sales with the new GSU40 model in August.

Even with that extraordinary improvement, the Kluger didn't overtake the Prado, let alone Ford's Territory for sales. Mitigating that further, Toyota introduced front-wheel drive versions that weren't available in the old MCU28 model range, so the sales were expected to climb dramatically with the introduction of the new model.

Another difference between Kluger and C-Class was that Toyota had a reasonable expectation the SUV would pick up sales, but in Benz's case, C-Class has sold well ahead of forecast and the company has had to forward an urgent request to the factory to ship more stock.

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