Mercedes-Benz launches imported S-Class at `2.17 cr

German luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz India on Thursday launched the imported version of its new generation flagship sedan S-Class with price starting at Rs 2.17 crore while it prepares to introduce locally-produced variety of the model in the fourth quarter this year.

The new seventh generation S-Class comes in two variants -- diesel S 400d 4MATIC priced at Rs 2.17 crore and petrol S 450 4MATIC tagged at Rs 2.19 crore. It is the eighth launch out of the 15 new product introductions that Mercedes-Benz India has lined up for 2021. "The S-Class is the pillar of Mercedes in many aspects. It has a lot of following also. When it was globally launched (in Q4 of 2020) a lot of our customers (in India) followed and saw what's coming and there is a lot of interest in the car," Mercedes-Benz India Managing Director & CEO Martin Schwenk told PTI. In order to "bridge the gap" between the global launch and local availability and also considering the time taken to prepare for local production, he said the company is first launching the imported completely built unit (CBU) version in India with a limited number of stock of around 150 units. "We planned to sell 150 units of these cars in the first lot and half of it is gone already. We have more than 50 per cent of these cars already booked and assigned to customers," Schwenk said.