Mercedes Benz to CKD assemble GL-Class SUV from August end?

During the launch of the GL-Class SUV earlier this year, Mercedes Benz India announced that it would begin CKD assembly of its flagship SUV in the next few months. AutocarIndia reports that the GL-Class SUV's CKD assembly will begin from August 26th, 2013, at Mercedes Benz India's Chakan assembly facility. Interestingly, India will be the second country in which the GL-Class SUV is locally assembled. 

The GL-Class's other assembly facility is situated at Mercedes Benz's mother plant at Tuscaloosa, USA.  Since Mercedes Benz India considered CKD assembly while pricing the first batch of the CBU imported GL-Class, the SUV will continue to retain its 77.5 lakh rupee price tag at which it was launched during May 2013. The 2013 Mercedes Benz GL-Class SUV is powered by a 3 liter V6 turbo diesel engine that outputs 258 Bhp of peak power and 619 Nm of peak torque.

The engine is mated to a 7 speed automatic transmission, that drives all four wheels of the SUV through the 4MATIC four wheel drive system. The GL-Class SUV is a seven seat SUV that takes on the likes of the Audi Q7 and the BMW X5. Notably, Audi India has already begun assembling the Q7 from CKD kits at its Aurangabad facility. Although BMW CKD assembles the likes of the X1 and X3 Crossovers, the X5 SUV continues to be imported into India through the CBU route.

With both the Mercedes Benz GL-Class and the Audi Q7 SUVs hopping onto the CKD route, it might be just be a matter of time before BMW also takes the CKD route for the X5. Audi India leads sales charts after 7 months of 2013, with total sales of 5,551 units, compared with Mercedes Benz India's 4,575 units. BMW India, is said to be relegated to third place in the Indian luxury car market, and the car maker hasn't revealed numbers for the first 7 months of this year.