Mercedes Benz has spent the last two years trying to figure out what the next generation A and B-class compacts should be. Traditional gas and diesels? Hybrids? EVs? A mixture of all of those? The stakes are high in the this segment of the automobile game and MB has a lot riding on it. And Merc’s parent, Daimler, has just announced that it is going to obligate €600 million in updates and expansion to the factory that builds the A and B-class compacts.

Mercedes has yet to announce which platform, whether the A- class or the B-class, it will use for the upcoming small cars, but we do know that they will start production at the Rastatt factory in late 2011. Mercedes is adding a 710,000 square foot body shop to produces the shells of the new models at the factory and they have already started construction of a new stamping facility in nearby Kuppenheim to produce the body panels that will be welded at the Rastatt body shop.

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This is good news, if you like small, light weight sports cars like I do. It seems that Mercedes is considering building a small, open-topped car based on its A-Class platform. The A-Class is unknown here in the U.S., it’s a small, urban kind of car, that sort of resembles a shrunken minivan, and is more well known, in an engineering sense, for its powertrain packaging.

It also turns out that the A-class might provide a transportation option of more interest to the car enthusiast like us.

The proposed car would be even smaller then the SLK, and, assuredly, lighter. Although the SLK is a fun car, it IS a Merc, which means it is heavier than if it was made by, say, a Japanese company. Not so with the new A-class based roadster.

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