German premium brands gear up for baby SUV boom

Germany’s premium brands are setting themselves up to fight over ever-higher volumes by sliding new models beneath the bottom ends of their current line-ups.

With Europe's volume car makers deciding en masse that their future hopes lie in being seen as more premium, BMW and Mercedes-Benz are both testing the waters with concept cars touted as more volume-focused, while Audi is almost there already with the upcoming Q1.

Mercedes-Benz has unveiled its G-Code vehicle study in China, while BMW has been spied putting the finishing touches on prototypes of its X1 production car.

Audi has already given a sneak preview of the MQB-based Q1 by showing the Crosslane Coupé concept car at the Paris Motor Show last month.

Front-drive architecture

The last Audi penned by

Wolfgang Egger

before his departure to Giugiaro, the Crosslane Coupé concept is longer, wider and taller than an A3 hatch, but smaller than the smallest current Audi SUV, the Q3. A range-extender electric car, the Crosslane Concept clearly marks the future of Audi’s bottom-end SUV range and should make production by late 2015 as a five-door with a conventional powertrain.

But Audi’s traditional German premium rivals are determined not to let the Ingolstadt brand have the baby SUV landscape all to itself.

BMW is less than two years away from releasing an X1 Sport Cross, which will veer away from the X1's rear-drive origins to be based on the same UKL front-drive architecture as the new Mini hatch and the BMW 2-Series Active Tourer. To be available in both front- and all-wheel drive configurations, the new baby BMW SUV will be sold with either three- and five-door layouts, according to German magazine Auto Bild.

The company most caught on the hop by the swing to smaller SUVs has been Mercedes-Benz. Until now.

Shown as part of the opening celebrations for its product engineering centre in Beijing, the G-Code looks for all the world to be Mercedes-Benz's take on the genre sparked by the Nissan Juke. Mercedes-Benz, oddly enough, doesn't see it that way.

Instead, Daimler's head of design Gorden Wagener calls it an "innovative and versatile sports utility coupé for town and country which shows how emotionally appealing a future compact SUV can be".

Even though Benz insists the G-Code is a pure design study, it has already dipped its toe into the upper end of the volume pool once with the CLA and liked what it found there, so don’t be surprised if a version of it makes it to production.

If that happens, it might not be as complex as this one, with its missing B-pillar and its powertrain that consists of “a state-of-the-art turbocharged combustion engine that runs on hydrogen and electric motor that drives the rear axle”. No additional details have been forthcoming.

Given that Mercedes-Benz sources suggest a production version of the G-Code would be positioned beneath the current A-Class, it’s safe to assume that a bimotor hybrid probably won’t be standard in the range, though.

What will be standard is the G-Code’s 2+2 layout, its rear hatch-style luggage area and its higher seating position, though not necessarily an all-wheel drive layout.

“Sensual purity”

Mercedes-Benz has shared the styling credits, insisting it “interprets the current design idiom of sensual purity from the perspective of the Mercedes-Benz advanced designers”, both in its main studio in Sindelfingen, Germany, and its new product engineering centre in China.

Where Mercedes-Benz has seen its CLA attract new, younger male buyers, it is hoping the production version of the G-Code might do the same for young women and urban dwellers.

It’s a deliberately flamboyant design, with very short overhangs, a wraparound windscreen creating a floating roof design and a backlit grille with a choice of blue, red or purple colouring (BMW’s M would be pleased).

“The designers of the G-Code drew their inspiration from the modern lifestyle and digital affinity of the younger Asian society,” a Mercedes-Benz spokesman insisted. “In the future, this generation will prefer above all cool and sporty crossover, as prior studies conducted by Daimler have shown. At the same time, the G-Code initiates an automotive trend that focuses on new technologies, classic craftsmanship and design.”

It sits 4.1m long, 1.9m wide and only about 1.5m high, making it shorter than the Audi concept by 150mm, though roughly the same width and height. Mercedes-Benz already has a baby SUV in the GLA, but the G-Code is slightly wider and higher, though a significant 317mm shorter to put it in an entirely different class.

Its stance is dominated by 21-inch alloy wheels with carbon-fibre spokes and it has aluminium front and rear “underride guards” to hint at an off-road ability the production version probably won’t have.

There are smatterings of Benz’s current design language at play in the grille and the G-shaped LED headlights, but hints of the next generation, too, including the addition of rear-hinged back doors and more sensual curves down the doors and over the rear haunches.

The interior is clean and dominated by a floating dash with just five vents and an F1-style butterflied handgrip-only steering wheel facing out of it. It has an even cleaner look before it’s fired up because the steering wheel, pedals and multimedia screen all pop up as soon as the car starts (via a smartphone application).

Body scanners

It has a very wide screen (which runs almost two-thirds of the way across the top of the dash- board) which shows all vehicle data (including navigation and speed) as well as displaying camera views and managing the audio system.

Mercedes-Benz also claims a first by fitting the G-Code with 3D body scanners to allow the leather seats to better mould themselves to the driver’s shape. In a nod to its roots in polluted Asian megacities, the ventilation system is designed to pump a steady stream of oxygen from on-the-run hydrogen synthesis.

If that’s not enough, the G-Code also boasts two fully electric scooters buried below the boot floor to keep its drivers going long after the car has been parked. Both scooters are recharged on the move by drawing power from the car.