For years, the Malaysian automotive market, the largest passenger car market in Asean and only behind China, Japan, India and Korea (In terms of volume) in Asia; have seen the dominance of Japanese brands in the market, however as Japanese car makers improved tremendously in recent years, closing the gap from traditional luxury marques such as Mercedes Benz and BMW, so does their pricing, in fact, a poorly spec-ed Toyota Camry (2 airbags and a thermometer) that was made in Thailand costs RM20,000 more than a Malaysian made Peugeot 407 (SatNav, 7 airbags), in fact, the Toyota RAV4 costs RM203,000 whereas a Mercedes B-Class now costs RM215,000. Still a gap, but don't forget, European marques are getting taxed much more heavily than a Japanese make, hence discounting the money you paid to our government for lavish Putrajaya streetlamps, the B-Class actually costs less, much lesser for that matter.Now since Japanese marques had climbed the ladder, so does consumers who're aware of this, all of a sudden, European luxury marques no longer seemed 'unreacheable', as its evident from the influx of Golf GTis, Mini Coopers from the lower end, and not to say hundreds of Mercedes A/B/C Classes roaming the streets and of course the spot-it-on-every-corner-BMW-3-Series.
This had gotten European marques to focus more and more in Malaysian markets, and this latest launch of Mercedes Benz' Autohaus is an evident of this paradigm shift. Traditionally, when we buy European makes, choices are limited, in fact you can't even have banana yellow for your S-Class, and all you see when you entered so-called 'showrooms' are C180s, E200 Kompressor, and perhaps an S320, and we know being a third world country (despite first world streetlamps), we tend to keep quiet when we're witnessing some rather lacklustre 3S centers.
However, have we all notice something different in recent years? Gigantic showrooms of BMW, the Ingress Auto along LDP, the huge Audi Hangar of Euromobil in Shah Alam, and now we're bringing you to Mercedes Benz' OMG showroom in Klang, by NZ Wheels, a subsidiary of Malaysia's giant automotive dealer - Naza Motor Trading. NZ Wheels, the official importer of CBU Mercedes Benz had spent RM 3 Million in equipping this showroom with state of the art service equipments, lounges that are no match even for 5 star hotels. There's also a garden amidst the Star Trek-esque showroom, best of all, there's even a childcare playroom where it helps making up your decision between living happily ever after with an SL63AMG or that pesty little kid of yours.Now coming back to the NZ Wheels Autohaus that received the coveted "Most Improved Autohaus" award from Mercedes Benz back in 2007, well trained staffs and excellence in service and hospitality is something that needs no introduction for Mercedes Benz or any showrooms or service centers of Naza; the real interesting part is, this NZ Wheels Autohaus is the only Mercedes Benz showroom that features full range of Mercedes models; from the humble B-Class, full range of AMG models to the McLaren Mercedes SLR. Not only that you could pretend test driving the C63AMG whereas you'reactually aftering the C200, you could even customize interiors, wheels of choice and best of all, with the unique customized color program, you can now have strawberry polka dots on your S-Class - all towards customer satisfaction.
This we believe, is a new step from German automakers that are determined in securing their turf, their impenetrable luxury status in the automotive world, and all the better for Malaysia's huge market that have long deserve better buying and ownership experiences. Kudos for Mercedes Benz and Naza. As for those who can't wait to drop by just to touch the SLR (not the girl please), here goes the map, and you can visit their website by clicking on the map. P.S Those wheels below are optional items, that beautiful lady sadly, is not.
