Filed under: Car Buying, Mercedes-Benz

What's Happening To This Once-Exclusive Segment?

These days, luxury makers seem to have an adversity to white space.

What comes before "A"? That's the problem Mercedes-Benz apparently has to cope with as it works up plans for an all-new premium minicar that's currently being referred to as the X-Class.

It's been three decades since the German maker first introduced - after much internal debate - the original "Baby Benz," the line that became today's C-Class. It's more recently added downsized B- and A-Class lines, as well, the X- expected to be even smaller. And that's on top of all the other new models that have rapidly fleshed out the Teutonic marque's lineup, from the G to the GLK, not to mention CLS, CLA (above) and SLK.

It's an alphanumeric soup, and Mercedes isn't alone, as a quick perusal of the BMW and Audi lineups - never mind the expanding mix at Cadillac, Lincoln, Lexus and Jaguar - reveals. These days, luxury makers seem to have an adversity to white space. They're struggling to fill in every possible gap in what is a luxury market that is both rapidly growing and quickly changing.


Continue reading Redefining luxury

Redefining luxury originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 02 Apr 2013 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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04-02-2013 08:00 PM

Umm, brand it as a Smart and be done with it?

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