- Mercedes Pushes for Perfect C-Class Launch
2008 Mercedes-Benz C300 Luxury
By Brendan Moore
04.06. 2007
The new Mercedes C-Class, shown for the first time at Geneva last month and now being shown for the first time in North America, must have a perfect launch, says Mercedes CEO Ernst Lieb.
Mercedes has been wounded in the past few years by poor quality and poor reliability, mostly around nagging electrical problems, and Lieb says the new C-Class should put paid to those issues. Lieb stated the new C-Class has been tested more than any other vehicle in Mercedes-Benz history, and he expects the result of the massive volume of testing to be a car as close to perfect as it can be. Many long-time Mercedes-Benz customers are keen to see the tremendous increase in quality Lieb promises as there has some disillusionment (as well as some defections) among the Mercedes faithful over the last 10 years.
Additionally, Mercedes has geometrically increased the amount of safety testing on the C-Class, and the car is promised to considerably exceed all other cars in its segment regarding passenger safety.
The U.S. market gets three C-Class V6 models: the C300 Sport, C350 Sport, and the C300 Luxury. The sport and luxury models are set apart from each other by different front-end treatments, model-specific suspensions, and different option packages. Mercedes states that AWD will be offered approximately a month after initial launch in August, giving the C-Class a considerable edge over most other luxury cars in the areas of the United States that receive a lot of snowfall.
Mercedes needs everything to go right with the C-Class as it is one of the main pillars of their overall sales worldwide and in the U.S. from a volume perspective.
