Providing much-needed respite from a year burdened with bad news, Mercedes-Benz India has just announced that it would begin assembling AMG cars at its local production facility in Chakan, Maharashtra.
The development is another first by the luxury carmaker, which was also the first one to make its entire array of cars sold in India BS-VI compliant, even long before it was mandated by the government.
AMG happens to be the brand’s in-house performance tuning division, acquired wholly by the brand in 1999. Mercedes-Benz India introduced AMG performance cars to the country in 2010, with the cars having come-in via the CBU (Completely Built Unit) route thus far, thereby accruing 100 percent import duty fees, according to the tax structure imposed by the government.
Merc’s decision to locally assemble its range of AMG cars, stems from the emphasis placed by the central government on encouraging local manufacturing and assembly. More importantly, it is indicative of the sub-brand’s success in India, having seen 54 percent year-on-year growth, according to the brand.
Mercedes-AMG, as the performance division is officially known, offers high-performance counterparts to most of the Mercedes-Benz cars sold in the country, but at a considerable premium that’s often thrice the price of a standard model.
Of course, the cars are thrice as powerful and radically different in character, with the added ability of being racetrack-ready at the drop of a hat.
At present Merc offers 8 AMG models in the country starting from the GLC43 and going all the way up to the S63 AMG and the Mercedes-AMG GT – a two-door grand tourer that marks the zenith of AMG performance.
According to Mercedes-Benz, the newly launched Mercedes-AMG GLC 43 Coupé is going to be the first locally assembled AMG in the country, having already served as one of the top-selling AMG models in India.
At present, the brand has not disclosed what other models will follow the local assembly route after the GLC 43 Coupé. The GLC 43 joins 10 other non-AMG models currently being brought-in via the CKD (Completely Knocked Down) route and assembled in Chakan.
Parth Charan is a Mumbai-based writer who’s written extensively on cars for over seven years.
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