The car maker said the 155-acre site, which it claims will be far more than merely a car sales point, is set to attract 300,000 visitors a year. It will display 120 cars from the Maybach, Mercedes and Smart ranges and will also house a five-star restaurant, a cafe, boutiques and a dedicated kids' zone. Outside are 2.5km of handling circuits, a wet skid pan and a 10-acre off-road course. Mercedes-Benz World will be the focal point of the factory-owned DaimlerChrysler UK Retail network, which controls a third of the dealerships in the UK and emerged when the brand overhauled its retail network five years ago. While retaining some workshop capacity, the Mercedes outlets in Woking and Tooting, south London, situated within a 10-mile radius of the flagship, will merge into the Brooklands operation in October. Dermot Kelly, managing director of Mercedes-Benz UK, claimed the Brooklands project, which was started six years ago, had come in on budget but took a long time to develop due to the difficulties faced in finding a site and then negotiating a price for it. “It's on green belt land but it didn't get called in by the government,” said Kelly. He said the site could eventually host a hotel and an office block and added that the brand had handed 56 acres of the land to the town council for a park. It might be expected that Mercedes dealers would feel threatened by the high profile Brooklands development but rather than diverting trade from their own businesses Kelly claimed dealers would bring their customers to Brooklands to try out the cars they did not have in their own demonstrator fleets. “People will go to Brooklands to test drive a car then buy it from their local dealer,” he said. He also said the site would be a magnet for corporate customers with its extensive conference facilities and that it represented “a celebration of our brand and of what our cars can do”. In restructuring its UK retail network at the start of the decade Kelly said Mercedes had decided to “go for the big idea”. He admitted the brand had originally wanted to establish experience centres in Birmingham and Manchester as well as near London but that the costs had proved prohibitive. Nevertheless he said retail hubs had been set up in the UK's three main urban conurbations. Kelly claimed taking control of such a large stake of its sales operation provided the brand with an “insurance policy”. DCUK Retail accounts for 27 per cent of total UK sales, which in the first seven months of the year rose 12 per cent year-on-year to 47,500, according to the SMMT. The rest of the network consists of 24 franchised partners running 156 outlets. Prior to 2000 Kelly admitted Mercedes had fallen behind its arch rivals BMW and Audi in terms of its retailing standards. “We weren't applying enough pressure,” he said. “We didn't make our requirements clear.” Kelly said Mercedes had set the agenda in the 1990s by branching out into niche sectors – a route its competitors had since followed. But he pointed out there were significant differences between the Mercedes and BMW strategies with the three pointed star a symbol of luxury and comfort while the Munich-based company emphasised drive and performance. However, the main difference between the marques is illustrated by their key models with BMW taking on the volume players with the 3 Series while Mercedes keeps its sights set firmly on the higher echelons of the executive market. “The 3 Series is their heartland whereas the E-Class is our heartland,” Kelly said. Mercedes-Benz' new generation E-Class went on sale last month. The brand's product manager Greg Davis said the UK was the world's fourth largest market for the key executive model after the US, Germany and Italy. The car is available with a choice three diesel and four petrol engines plus the high performance E 63 AMG, which Mercedes describes as “the most powerful E-Class of all time”. Prices rise from £27,520 for the E200 Kompressor to £66,545 for the E63 AMG and have increased by about £400 to £500 across the line-up, according to Davis. He said at least 40 per cent of sales would go to fleets with four out of five buyers opting for a diesel model. The previous E-Class has notched up around a million sales worldwide since its launch in 2002 and accounted for 30 per cent of the executive market in western Europe last year, Mercedes claimed. In the UK 49,000 saloons have been sold since 2002 and 18,500 estates have left showrooms since 2003. Despite tough competition from Audi and BMW, Davis said the brand “expects gains” with the new version. Off-road challenger Mercedes-Benz will go head-to-head with Range Rover with the launch of its new GL-Class luxury off-roader in September. The car is available with a 5.5-litre V8 petrol unit and 3.0-litre V6 and 4.0-litre V8 diesel engines. Prices range from £51,675 for the entry-level oil burner to £63,075 for the more powerful diesel version and peak at £65,720 for the petrol model. Mercedes-Benz product manager Greg Davis said the GL 420, capable of 0-62mph in 7.6 seconds and with a top speed of 143mph, was the second fastest diesel SUV on the market after its smaller brother, the ML-Class.