One of the new Mercedes E-series variants

Mercedes Benz unveiled the two cheapest variants of its bread-and-butter E-class in Calcutta simultaneously with Mumbai and Ahmedabad on Wednesday.

Priced at Rs 42.08 lakh (ex-showroom Calcutta), the E250 V6 has a six-cylinder, 2497cc petrol engine. The other model launched, E250 CDI BE, has a price tag of Rs 40.79 lakh (ex-showroom Calcutta) and is powered by a 4 in-line 2143cc diesel engine.

Mercedes launched its ninth generation E-Class, the E350 and the E350 CDI, in October and November last year after withdrawing the old E-Class models.

“This created a gap in the market and the competition has since made good of the opportunity,” said Debasish Mitra, the director (sales and marketing) of Mercedes Benz India.

Fellow German brand BMW had taken the pole position in the luxury segment last year by selling 126 cars compared with Mercedes’s 103 cars.

“We have bridged the gap with our most iconic brand back in the market,” said Hiteshwar Singh, the CEO of Interkrafts.

The dealership has sold 22 units of the new variants till date, of which 21 are of the E350, priced at Rs 47.02 lakh. The E350 CDI, priced at Rs 48.12 lakh, has sold one unit.

Mercedes, which has been in the city since 1996, was the sole premium luxury car brand till 2008, when the Beemer zoomed into Calcutta. With Audi, too, poised for a city debut, Merc has tried to boost its market presence with an upgraded “world-class” workshop in Behala.

The company will open a larger showroom at Topsia on the EM Bypass by March this year. “The new showroom will have more space for display,” said Singh.

However, a “much larger state-of-the-art facility” is due to come up later, Singh added.

The Stuttgart-based company, which launched the Rs 2 crore SLS AMG, S500L and the GL 350 CDI at the 10th Auto Expo in New Delhi, is all set to introduce a slew of models and variants of existing models for a “profitable growth” in 2010.