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      12-05-2017, 11:01 AM   #6
mkoesel
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Drives: No BMW for now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by radiofrequency View Post
i looked at the GLA45, and where I have one disagreement with you is that it is a hatchback, not an SUV - Mercedes has poured an intensive effort into their advertising and salesperson narrative to ensure that potential buyers see it as an SUV, and not as a hatchback.
The question I ask myself in situations like this is if it is worth it to be pedantic when it boils down to an attempt to re-sort things in a better way using a set rigid rules around what was never meant to be wholly deterministic to begin with. In my experience, you usually don't achieve anything material by taking this approach other than muddying the waters (and perhaps looking a little stubborn ).

If you think about the set of all SUVs that you personally will reclassify as hatchbacks, then consider that someone else comes along and presents a reasoned argument for adding one more, and then someone else does the same for one more, and one more, you end up with a situation where communications are impeded by debate over semantics and, furthermore, you did not succeed in the goal of achieving better accuracy.

Practically, the issue you run into with classifying the GLA as a hatchback is that now you have two hatchbacks - the GLA and the A class - riding on the same platform and with essentially the same specifications. Yet, there are definite differences between them. And if you look at what those differences are, you will find that they are very much within the set of attributes that are typically used to define the two different vehicles classes that have already been established.

An exception might be if a product is marketed as a hatchback first and then, with no changes whatsoever, suddenly becomes an SUV in later marketing correspondence. That is where the consumer should be suspect. But we do not have that situation here. The GLA has always been the SUV. Its sister vehicle, the A Class, is the hatchback (and as noted earlier, is not sold in the US).
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