USA Today reported that a Mercedes Benz executive, Ulrich Walker, will oversee the return of Borgward to production after a bit of a gap.
The article reported that Walker’s vision for the car is affordable luxury, which is rather intriguing as this translates as that class of car where there has been the most fatalities in the last few decades: Triumph, Lancia, Rover, Saab, Oldsmobile, for example. Further, mainstream brands that have had products that reached into the affordable luxury sector have been less and less successful.
Ford, Opel, Renault and Citroen have all lost considerable amounts of customers in this sector as the Scorpio, Omega, 607 and C6 have failed to meet sales expectations. This doesn’t mean it’s not a very interesting sector for spectators.
My own impression is that affordable luxury means an upper-mid range saloon with a bias towards comfort and beige interiors. I look forward to seeing how that one pans out.
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