Fair go for RHD markets: Zetsche
Mercedes-Benz Chairman announces that all future platforms will be developed for right-hook countries as wellAustralians love SUVs, especially compact SUVs. And prestige compact SUVs are even better. They're the automotive equivalents of Easter eggs -- very nicely packaged and full of surprising sweetness.
Where the small prestige offroader has an advantage over chocolate eggs is the SUV's option of all-wheel drive traction -- unless it's the Mercedes-Benz GLK. The W203 C-Class platform that underpins the GLK was never designed for right-hand drive application when running the 4MATIC (all-wheel drive) running gear.
So the GLK, built on the superseded C-Class platform (the current platform is now the W204 generation), cannot be sold in right-hand drive countries with all-wheel drive capability unless that country allows left-hand drive vehicles to be road-registered. Australia is not one of those countries.
At the Frankfurt motor show last week, Australian journalists were informed by Mercedes-Benz Chairman, Doctor Dieter Zetsche, that the neglect of RHD markets such as Australia was a thing of the past. But, in the short term, the GLK issue will not be quickly resolved.
"Let's start with a good message: our future architectures will provide for left and right, 4x2, 4x4 capabilities without incremental effort or time -- other than staggered launches -- generally," Doctor Zetsche said.
"But that's not how we approached it in the past and that's how we have come to these compromises, which in some cases we can overcome and in some cases we can't.
"This is not good at all and [it's] our task to overcome that as fast as possible."
While it's little consolation to those in the market right now for an offroad-ready GLK, it does indicate that the senior management at Benz is listening and responding. The fact that Doctor Zetsche needed no prompting from the Australian press to comment on the GLK situation indicates that the issue had certainly reached the tip of the Benz management hierarchy.
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