Oh for f…
We get that the SUV trend, at the moment, is hotter than bell-bottom jeans and big hair used to be. Companies like Mercedes-Benz know this well, and have been devoting quite a bit of their resources to capitalise on the market trend and service demand for crossovers in all shapes and sizes. As it is, there’s already a GLA, GLC, GLE, and GLS, as well as a couple of coupe-roofed oddities in between. However, it seems, Mercedes-Benz missed the mark on a new SUV niche that BMW’s already filled with the X2, and they won’t take that lying down.
Comments made by Dr. Dieter Zetsche, the very-moustached boss of Mercedes-Benz, suggested to TopGear UK that the company may be readying a new variation of the ever-popular GLA to compete against the X2 directly.
“The new BMW X2 is basically like the [current] GLA. And you will see a new GLA. As in other [SUV] segments, we will have two interpretations. So the GLA will be more in the SUV direction, and that will expand our scope. That gives us the possibility of doing something between the A-Class and the GLA.” — Dr. Dieter Zetsche, Chairman (Board of Management), Mercedes-Benz
If Dr. Zetsche’s comments are anything to go by, it suggests that the GLA might get a bit more butch with the next generation, looking and feeling more like a bona fide SUV and leaving the crossover space it presently inhabits to make room for a GLA coupe. We’re imagining a CLA on stilts.
It’s been said on multiple occasions that the new-generation A-Class platform will go on to underpin some 8 different variants in the compact segment. With the A-Class confirmed, along with an A-Class saloon for China and North America, a CLA, a GLA, a GLB, and a B-Class, that leaves three further spaces for the A-Class platform to be utilised. With the GLA Coupe taking space number seven, that leaves… a CLA Shooting Brake and… an estate, perhaps?
There are also rumours of an elongated B-Class that may house a third row of seats in the back, to take on the BMW 2-Series Active Tourer as well, or perhaps that’ll take the form of the GLB instead (SUVs are all the rage, after all). We can’t help but wonder if that too will spawn its own ungainly coupe variant.
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