Mercedes Benz could never have been more elated than now. The flagship sedan of German company, Mercedes Benz C Class, has successfully touched the 1 Million sales mark ever since it went on sale in its current avatar back in 2007. In the last three years or so, more than 840,000 sedan variants & 160,000 wagon variants of the car have been delivered to customers across the globe.

A few months back, Mercedes Benz introduced a stripped down variant of the C-Class for a fleet of customers. We can hope for the company to make this variant available for the general customers too. Now, that would definitely elevate the appeal of the C-Class. Mercedes recently introduced the CGI technology in the C-Class to ensure better fuel economy.

Since the market launch of the current generation Mercedes C-Class, around one million customers have bought it. Mercedes Benz has sold more than eight million vehicles in this segment since the first C-Class was introduced back in 1982.

“The C-Class is our best-selling production series and therefore of great importance for Mercedes-Benz,” said a very happy Dr. Joachim Schmidt, Executive Vice President Sales and Marketing, Mercedes-Benz Cars. “We are therefore especially pleased that the vehicle is so popular with our customers. In June the sedan was the best-selling vehicle in its comparative class worldwide.

Despite last year’s weak market environment, sales of the sedan are currently four percent higher than those of the predecessor model during the same period since its market launch. The estate has also met with an outstanding response, with deliveries increasing by 20 percent in June”, he added.

“The United States is the largest market for the C-Class sedan, accounting for 25 percent of total sales. The next-largest markets are Germany and China. A total of 29,600 C-Class cars were sold in the U.S. during the first half of the year, representing an increase of 15 percent on the same period last year.

Deliveries totaled 14,300 units in Germany, while 12,100 customers bought a C-Class sedan in China during this period. Sales of the C-Class sedan rose by six percent worldwide during the first half of the year, to 120,300 units. The estate has also met with a great customer response, with deliveries substantially higher in nearly all markets in June 2010 compared to June 2009.

The increase amounted to six percent in Germany, which is the largest market for the estate, while sales rose by 19 percent in Western Europe as a whole and by 47 percent in Japan, which is the fourth-largest market,” Daimler informed.

The biggest advantage of C-Class is its outstanding fuel efficiency which is quite a rare quality in the other cars in its segment. And to reiterate its motto of fuel efficiency, Mercedes is planning to install the state-of-the-art ECO start-stop function into the C-Class’ C 180 CGI BlueEFFICIENCY and C 200 CGI BlueEFFICIENCY models in connection with mechanical six-speed transmissions. This start-stop feature is expected to bring down the our-cylinder engine’s fuel consumption and CO2 emissions by up to ten percent.

In the upcoming years, the most popular engine variant of the C-Class, the C 220 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY, will also get the ECO start-stop function and six-speed manual transmission. The vehicle, which is already very fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly, will then consume only 4.4 liters of fuel per 100km. And that’s not all, it will also cut CO2 emissions from 127 g/km to 117 g/km.

The Mercedes Benz C-Class is a total hit with the Indian crowd too. Most of the Indian car buyers seem to choose the C-Class over the BMW 3 Series & the Audi A4.