Mercedes-Benz has ruled out a return of the E-Class wagon to Australia with the upcoming W214 generation.
The W214 E-Class wagon has yet to be revealed, but is expected to be offered in both conventional and high-riding All-Terrain guise.
Neither will come here, nor will the wagon version of the current C-Class (and its AMG derivatives) which the company has previously ruled out.
When asked whether wagons were officially dead at Mercedes-Benz Australia, a company spokesperson said, “Don’t call it Mercedes-Benz Australia, call it Australia.”
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C-Class All-Terrain
“We all love wagons but unfortunately there’s not enough people buying them. I think everybody loves the nostalgia of a wagon, but the reality is there’s an SUV available which more people want.
“It comes down to business case, the business case needs to stack up,” the Mercedes-Benz Australia spokesperson added.
“And if it doesn’t stack up, we can’t just do it because we hope it might work.”
“If we were a much larger market, maybe we could offer more,” the spokesperson said when asked whether that meant the SUV-like All-Terrain versions of the C-Class and E-Class were also off the table.
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C-Class sedan and wagon
“But the size of our market, we think having a sedan and an SUV variant is enough for our market,” he added, citing as an example the availability of the C-Class sedan and the related GLC crossover.
The company has previously said demand for its SUVs is steadily increasing while demand for its wagon models was steadily decreasing.
Mercedes-Benz only offers one other wagon in Europe, the CLA Shooting Brake. Though this was offered here in first-generation guise, the current second-generation model wasn’t imported.
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Current E-Class All-Terrain -
Current AMG E63 Estate
The outgoing E-Class was sold here in All-Terrain wagon guise, but this was withdrawn in 2021 with Mercedes-Benz instead bringing the facelifted range here only in sedan, coupe and convertible guise.
While Mercedes-Benz won’t sell its C-Class wagon here, BMW still offers a 3 Series Touring, Audi an A4 Avant or allroad, Genesis a G70 Shooting Brake, and Volvo a V60 Cross Country.
There are slimmer pickings in the large luxury segment the E-Class competes in. Jaguar dropped its XF Sportbrake and BMW its 5 Series Touring in 2020, with the Volvo V90 Cross Country following them out the door in 2021.
The Volkswagen Group is keeping the flame alive with its Audi A6 allroad and RS6 and the Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo and Taycan Cross Turismo.
