BHPian UD17 recently shared this with other enthusiasts:One word- Wao, what an experience; It’s really a dream fulfilled.I would like to thank Team-BHP and Mercedes Benz India to organize this immersive experience with us BHPians. This was indeed once in a lifetime opportunity to witness both front and behind the action that happens to build a true luxury. The biggest highlight was the interaction with Mercedes India’s CEO Mr. Santosh Iyer. With great clarity he threw light on many insights on past, present and future of automobile industry business landscape. He also touched upon what it takes for a disruptive transformation, the protectionist geopolitics scenario, and the effect of dynamic policies framework.Reaching B.U. Bhandari:I think i travelled farthest to reach B.U. Bhandari, it was a very long 10Kms drive which took excruciating 15 minutes (pun intended). Again, thanks to Team BHP to provide me the opportunity to participate. Its really a dream come true moment. At the dealership gate, I was greeted by excellent selection of cars which are available in all possible colors. This starts the day long journey in to true luxury. Many BHPians and our moderators were already there; I had a great time to talk and meet many BHPians. A quick registration courtesy to our cool moderator Omkar followed by a devouring selection of breakfast. The discussions with BHPians continued during breakfast, it felt like i know all these guys since long. All were very knowledgeable and welcoming. At the breakfast table, we did get some very interesting nitty-gritty from Mercedes India’s product planning guys. They explained on many subjects like methodologies on variant selection, configuration management and powertrain selection for Indian market. It was again Omkar who briefed about the team configuration and what everyone would drive to Mercedes factory. A quick briefing by GTO paved the way further to the exciting drive.Mercedes-Benz G450D: My commanding drive to the Mercedes-Benz India factoryI got the wine Colour G450D, accompanied by BHPian AXE77. The SUV has a sick look with equally menacing engine, a 3L 6-cylinder turbo diesel AWD with 362bhp and 750Nm torque and a very fast 5.8 seconds for 0-100 kmph. As i open the door, the toughness of this SUV became evident. The heavy doors closing with a reassuring thud indeed required a very heavy push. The interior was well laid out for a tough SUV point of view, upfront 12 inch dual screen setup, firm Nappa leather seats, crisp high-resolution cameras and ADAS. The bling spot monitoring system was indeed a boon for the SUV where one sits way up, even the SUVs like Hexa, XUV and so on looked dwarf from inside. AXE77 Getting acquainted to the controls: AXE77 took the first spell of drive, it was a city drive full of traffic. I got a chance to drive after Nasik Phata till Mercedes factory. The Nasik highway as usual had a very heavy traffic with some spell of free roads and the G450D doesn’t fail to impress us, it was fast yet very nimble to handle. We had a great attention from all direction with this mighty SUV. We progressed to Chakan with slow speed, but it all felt worth to spend more time inside the cocooned cabin of G450D. She had taken all the carters, bumps, potholes etc. with aplomb. Finally got some free roads approaching to Mercedes factory and car responded very well for all the spurt of overtaking maneuvers. Convoy of Mercedes: Reached in style inside the Mercedes factory. The welcome and courtesy from whole Mercedes team was worth mentioning. It felt right at home moment. A great line up welcomed us in the experience center. The overall ambience of experience center justified its name. All things were exquisite and made with great attention to details. The Emerald Maybach, out of 30 customized G63 AMG and another white Maybach accentuated the beauty of experience center. Thanks to Mercedes team for a great welcome to all of us, we really felt special in your company. One of 30: I was eager to listen to Mr. Santosh Iyer (MD and CEO of Mercedes India). He candidly expressed his opinion on each questions throw to him. He was really a car guys and explained why he like the ’63AMG’ lineup the best of the lot. Some of the pointers from his presentation: – Mercedes in future would be propulsion system (Fuel) agnostic, Mercedes will provide the car based on customer requirements and legislation. – He expressed why automobile also need to do their bit in reducing pollution rather than blaming it to other industry (or other sources of pollution). The ethos is to save the environment, so it is just matter of time for transition to more cleaner solutions (BEV etc.) – He expressed why a free economy is vital for building big businesses rather than silo success. Brands were built in the past due to free economy. – He touched upon the software part of the vehicle, how Mercedes is approaching from a wholistic requirements point of view- Vehicle system, Customer interface, cyber security, safety, Verification & Validation of use cases etc. – He explained the rationale behind the pricing of the car, the duties, the freight and dealership related costs. He also explained how Mercedes helped dealers with the retail sales model (rather than wholesale) to reduce inventories at dealers and the resulting cash flow impact. – Focus of Mercedes is on creating differentiation on high end luxury product, create great value proposition for customers and build business around it, so any expectation on new launches on budget luxury (<70 Lakhs) seems distant. A shining Emerald Maybach inside the experience Centre: Mercedes-Benz India Plant Visit:The factory was quite clean and full of greenery. I got to experience many cars during hopping among different blocks of the plants. The inside areas of the plant were quite visual with illustration on safety, PPEs, plant KPIs, SOPs, do's and don'ts. I was amazed to see the live inspection of the BIW in the CMM room, expectedly it takes hours to program the CMM, measure the BIW and analyze the results. The functioning of factory looked so calm and well organized, no noise, no chaos, no firefighting. The assembly areas was equally impressive specially the powertrain assembly with the BIW. The preassembled powertrain (Engine, Transmission) and exhaust system moved up into the BIW and aligned with great precision. After complete vehicle assembly all the fluids needed for the vehicle were filled with automated system. The shower test and roller test were done in the ground floor posts the complete assembly of the vehicle. For the moderate volume assembly Mercedes has mastered the flexibility of the line to suit different variants and powertrain options. It felt fulfilling to see the parts that our company design and manufacture, assembled in the Mercedes engine. The warehouse was well arranged with lot of pallet positions. I could see exhaustive work done on firefighting systems, the perforated decking panels, sprinklers, even the hydrant lines were routed inside some racks (may be based on the nature of goods). The batteries were stored in a separate corner to avoid any exceptions. Lunch: True to the luxury the lunch had the selection of devouring dishes. The lichi rabdi was the star of the day, at least in my table.Post Lunch Experience:G Turn With The EQG:Enough has been said about the famous G turn in the quad-motor setup in the G EQ. from inside the car the G-turn experience was ultra smooth, the stop may be not so much. The screeching of the ground felt so musical for the first time. SUV Experience With The GLS 450dOne of some scintillating moment of the experience. We got the silver car, the gentlemen driving the car was really gentle, knowledgeable and an off-road guy. He explained all the functionalities, capability of the GLS 450d and how this car manages all the difficult use-case condition on the ground. He took the car to a 45 deg steep descent, hold it and suddenly reversed uphill, It was a heart in the mouth moment as it happened so sudden. Post that moment it was just goosebumps and thrill that remained in the body. The ascending the steep hill and articulation experience were equally good.Autocross Experience With The Mercedes-AMG A 45SA 45s AMG in her small footprints held inside an aggressive powertrain. A 4 cylinder with 400+ Bhp with AWD system. Initially the autocross seems difficult but the adroit team at Mercedes India illustrated the details of track, which made the work half easy and other half was taken care by car itself. It was fast, furious yet very nimble like a go-kart. The track curated for this fun event was somewhat tricky having sharp turns but the A 45s took it all with absolute ease. I thoroughly enjoyed my first ever such autocross experience. I did not try to push the car too much, i just enjoyed the whole experience. Beautiful car, In the backdrop warehouse building: As the day progressed, the thrill graph kept steeping a head and with the autocross the fun was peaked. The concluding session at experience center involves a small talk on the overall experience, the award distribution and souvenir distribution. Now its time to experience another car returning to B.U. Bhandari Baner in the peak Chakan traffic. High quality Mercedes merchandise inside the experience center: Returning Back In The Mercedes-Benz GLC 300dI was partnered with Gaurav with the GLC300 a 4-cylinder diesel this time. Shining interior with accentuating silver turbine ac vents: I got the first lap till Nigdi. The traffic was dense to experience the full capabilities of GLC300, but it was so comfortable inside that the heavy traffic didn't seem too bad. In this 80 minutes' drive, Gaurav and I talked so many subjects ranging from family, job, automobile, real estate, city life etc. It was a fun accompanying you Gaurav in this drive. along the highway saw our moderator Aditya clearly was having fun with orange AMG G63, the exhaust note was noteworthy even with closed windows of our GLC300. We reached, gathered and again talked about the full experience, return drive and the plans how everybody would go back home. I live nearby so it was least worry for me. Took my Hycross from the valet and as i entered the interior looked so bland, which is obvious when you spent full day with top end luxury cars from Mercedes. Reached home in 30 minutes. The head was still vibrating with the fact that I just finished a lifetime experience which will remain on top of memories to cherish. Once again I pay my sincere gratitude to Team-BHP, moderators and Mercedes India team for conceptualising and flawlessly executing such a wonderful event. Indeed the day was action packed and there was no vacuum in between. Few words for moderators: Met with them very first time. GTO: Very humble, approachable and take it easy kind of personality. You accommodated everyone so well. Thanks for very insightful questions to Mr. Iyer. We learnt a lot during your discussion with Mr. Iyer.Omkar: You are as vibrant as your name. Highly focused, calm and helping.Aditya: Very interesting guy with all the fun, knowledge and vastly accommodating. You shared so many automobile titbits during the casual discussion which i would always remember. Thanks to all the BHPians whom i could meet and interact, it felt really at home with all petrol heads. I would like to thank Yuvam as well who helped with all preparations for this visit. Check outBHPian commentsfor more insights and information.
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