New Mercedes-Benz A-Class and Smart For4 Coming to North America
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| The current A-Class offers high style and luxurious features for its microcar category. (Photo: DaimlerChrysler) |
Is North America so special that luxury car companies specifically design vehicles for our market? Of course it is and Mercedes-Benz is now in full support of such a plan. But don't expect to see Americanized versions of the company's S-Class flagship or M-Class SUV anytime soon, the cars optimized for North American tastes will be all-new models never before seen here.
Joachim Schmidt, in charge of worldwide sales and marketing for Mercedes-Benz, would not comment specifically on the details of the cars, but did offer a few hints. The next generation Mercedes-Benz A-Class, along with its North American redesign, will fill a completely new subcompact luxury segment below the C class in North America. While it will look different it will be based on the next generation A-Class platform sold in other world markets.
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| The smart city-coupé is even tinier than the A-Class, seating only two with a modicum of luggage space. (Photo: DaimlerChrysler) |
The current A-Class factory in Rastatt, Germany will begin producing cars in about a year's time. According to Schmidt, "it won't be available before 2005, at the earliest."
Also part of the DaimlerChrysler family an even smaller model under a completely different brand name will enter the North American market for the first time. Smart, or specifically smart (the branding shows the name in lower case), is planning to launch here in 2004. The company deems the current city-coupé and city-cabriolet micro cars as too small for the North American market so a newly specified model, dubbed For4, will be built.