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Mercedes-Benz Won't Build an SUV Smaller Than The GLA

With the three-pointed star already owning 25 percent of the entire SUV market and wanting to increase that to approximately 40 percent by 2020, upcoming all-new Mercedes-Benz crossover/SUV models will play a big part of that strategy.
Mercedes-Benz GLA Official Sketch 1 photo
Photo: Daimler AG
Among those entirely-new models there won't be anything smaller than the recently-unveiled GLA (X156), as that segment will be reserved for the smart brand.

This information comes directly from Ola Kallenius, the Mercedes-Benz head of sales and marketing and who until the end of last year was the CEO of Mercedes-AMG.

Speaking at the Geneva Motor Show 2014 with Car Sales Australia, Kallenius said: “SUVs are very important to our portfolio. Now that we are launching this year the new GLA, we’re adding one more product into our already very strong SUV line-up, and to have a premium entry SUV is going to be a very important piece of that puzzle.”

Launched in a couple of weeks in Europe and available in the US as well from this fall, the Mercedes-Benz GLA is the fourth member of the MFA (Modular Front Architecture) platform and is expected to be just as successful as its small brothers when it finally goes on sale.

Currently it is the smallest crossover/SUV in the ever-expanding Mercedes-Benz lineup and it will apparently stay that way, with a slightly smaller SUV to be launched by Daimler AG under the smart umbrella in 2016.

Mercedes-Benz is only set to launch a BMW X6-competitor called MLC in 2015, while a BMW X4-competitor is in development for a planned launch in late 2016, based on the upcoming GLK (X205). Therefore, by 2020 there will be no less than seven crossover/SUVs in the three-pointed star lineup, with the GLA remaining the smallest and cheapest model.
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About the author: Alex Oagana
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Alex handled his first real steering wheel at the age of five (on a field) and started practicing "Scandinavian Flicks" at 14 (on non-public gravel roads). Following his time at the University of Journalism, he landed his first real job at the local franchise of Top Gear magazine a few years before Mircea (Panait). Not long after, Alex entered the New Media realm with the autoevolution.com project.
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