Mercedes-Benz GLC is top of the pops

The Mercedes-Benz GLC outsold the brand's C-Class passenger-car range last year, to take the mantle of the importer's best-selling model from its combined passenger vehicle and SUV range.

"Last year, for the full year of 2018, the GLC was the most popular Mercedes-Benz vehicle, which also made it the most popular luxury car in Australia," says Ryan Lewis, Media Relations and Product Communications Manager for Mercedes-Benz Australia.

Speaking to the local press during the launch of the updated 2019 Mercedes-Benz GLC range, Lewis went on to explain that C-Class sales had dropped away last year with the migration to the refreshed mid-life model.

"C-Class has come back very strong in 2019; it was a change-over year with the facelift last year, but GLC remains the most popular premium SUV in Australia for 2019 so far."

What Lewis didn't specifically mention was that the medium SUV's sales may pick up again with the arrival of high-performance AMG models during the first quarter of next year and plug-in hybrids to follow in the second quarter.

The Benz exec revealed that as many as 50 per cent of GLC buyers are new to the Mercedes-Benz brand and the other buyers are mostly trading down from the GLE or swapping out of a C-Class. Typically, GLC buyers are two-car households looking for added versatility.

For the moment, the GLC (4515 sales for the conventional SUV and 738 sales for the Coupe) is slightly behind its year-to-date tally from 2018 (4517 plus 780 Coupe sales), but still in front of the combined sales for BMW X3 and X4 – 3734 for the former, 1188 for the latter.

The GLC's result is impressive, particularly from a brand that claims to sell more passenger cars than SUVs. Mercedes-Benz Australia estimates its sales to be a mix of 60 per cent passenger cars to 40 per cent SUVs, which is at odds with long-standing foe, BMW. In year to date sales for 2019, BMW has sold 11,470 SUVs to 6755 passenger cars, despite last year's recanting of the brand's heavy focus on SUV sales. For the period through to the end of September this year, BMW's most popular model was the X3.

Unlike BMW, Mercedes-Benz has resisted the seductive siren of SUV sales. But given the increasing popularity of high-riding family wagons in this country across all market sectors, how much longer can that continue for Benz?