Mercedes-Benz says it could have beaten the BMW's X6 to market with its own 'SUV coupe' but chose instead to prioritise developing the MFA family of front- and all-wheel drive small cars.
Now, seven years after the X6 launched, Benz has finally pitched a direct rival into the market in the form of the GLE Coupe, which goes on-sale in Australia in September.
And Wolf-Dieter Kurz, Mercedes-Benz vice-president product group SUVs and sports cars, insists – perhaps predictably – that his company made the right call.
It's a hard proposition to argue with considering the MFA cars have been a huge success. The X6, meanwhile, is a niche seller and BMW is only now building its first front-wheel drive car, the 2 Series Active Tourer.
"We had the focus in the past on expanding the portfolio and I think we were very successful in doing so," Kurz said. "And now we are coming with the SUV coupe and other manufacturers are coming with vehicles that look similar to B-Class."
Kurz was speaking at the global launch drive for the GLE coupe in Austria overnight Australian time, where motoring.com.au sampled the GLE Coupe for the first time.
Pricing will be published on Friday at midday, while drive impressions will go live from 8:00am next Tuesday morning, June 23. motoring.com.au has reported on the GLE Coupe line-up previously.
In the same way as the X6 spins from the more mainstream X5 SUV, so the GLE Coupe is based on the luxury GLE wagon. GLE is the new name for the ML-Class SUV, which has been updated and also goes on-sale in Australia in September.
The X6 was critically panned upon launch for its ungainly five-door coupe on-stilts body, which reduced functionality and interior space while costing more money compared to the X5. But the first generation, replaced in 2014, managed nearly 300,000 sales globally.
The five member MFA family, comprising A-Class, B-Class, CLA-Class sedan and shooting brake and the GLA small SUV has proved an enormous success for Benz, with more than one million sold since the B-Class was launched in 2011.
MFA now accounts for 28 per cent of all Benz sales and has played a key role in closing the sales gap to BMW and Audi.
Kurz confirmed Mercedes-Benz had been studying an SUV coupe in the early 2000s and could have beaten BMW to market with the model.
"Yes, we were also looking at that time but then made the decision that we are focussing on the A-Class portfolio to be expanded.
"It's also for economic reasons; are you going to ask the decision are you putting your investment into the whole A-Class range or are you investing into more niches?
"It's also a question of capacity," he added. "Where do you put your R&D guys in which type of vehicle to be developed?
"Of course the development of a new vehicle costs the same effort if you do a vehicle of one million in lifecycle or 100,000. So that is why the investment decision was taken."
Benz will follow up the GLE Coupe with a swoopy version of the compact GLC wagon. The mainstream BMW X3 rival has its global reveal later today in Germany – and you can read about it here tomorrow.
The X4 rival, unsurprisingly dubbed the GLC Coupe, has already broken cover as a concept in Shanghai this year and goes on-sale as a production model next year.