Mercedes-Benz in an A-Class onslaught

Mercedes-Benz is so determined to wipe out its boring small-car image that it's about to launch a shotgun blast of three different models to replace its five-door A-Class hatch.

With the Shanghai and New York motor show's Concept A hatchback confirmed as one of the three, Benz has gone for swoopier style and tauter handling in an effort to attract younger buyers out of Audi's A1 and A3 and BMW's 1-Series and MINI.

"As successful as the A and B class were, they were only attracting a part of the Concept A's segment," Daimler CEO Dr Dieter Zetsche admitted at the Shanghai show. "That's why we did this one (the Concept A) and two more A-Class based versions."

"We will have three different bodies for the A-Class, but there will also be the traditional B-Class to cover the people who like the existing A- and B-Class.

"They will all have a lot of shared parts, but different body structures."

Four years in the concept and design stage already, the three-pronged approach by the three-pointed star has taken lessons from Benz's successful E-Class-to-CLS body change on the same chassis.

"There is this one (the Concept A), which will only be a five-door, and there is speculation out there about a sedan, and not all of it is wrong," said Dr Zetsche.

The new strategy also gives the A- and B-Class models access to the rest of the Benz engine range for the first time, because none of the C-Class's engines fitted into their front-drive engine bay.

"The engine is now part of our complete strategy can be used for North-Sout or East-West," Mercedes-Benz Director of Development, Dr Thomas Weber, said.

"This was one of the disadvantages of the current A- and B-Class. We could not use the same four cylinder engines that we had in the rest of the range and lost on economies of scale and development. It's the same with the electronic architecture."

Dr Zetsche confirmed that next generation A- and B-Class models would wipe out the expensive "sandwich" floor that gave the cars their signature flat floors and high driving positions.

Ironically, that would mean Benz has eradicated it just as the original rationale for the expensive sandwich floor -- to house alternative powerplants and batteries for fuel cells, range-extender hybrids and full electric systems -- looks justifiable more than ever before.

"It sounds like a contradiction to do away with the sandwich floor, because this is the time for alternative powertrains," Dr Zetsche admitted.

"With the B-Class, there is still a "semi-sandwich" in the rear, so we can still house the battery or gas or hydrogen tanks in the floor or the wheel well and have either the engine or electroic components in that structure.

"But it will be a long transition from combustion engines to electric so if we are not on top of the absolute latest combustion technology we are lost. That much is clear.

"We see different steps of partial electricification, which is why we kept the semi sandwich, but we must stay on top of combustion technology.

 "There are advantages to removing the full floor. It's cheaper and faster to build, and the Concept A hip point is 15-20cm lower than the A-Class," Dr Zetsche explained.

The lower manufacturing costs from doing away with the sandwich floor and sharing drivetrain components -- allied with the different 'top hat' variants available -- will mean that A-Class may make a return to Australia in the next generation.

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