CATS celebrates two milestones this year

CATS Motors Inc., the country’s distributor for Mercedes-Benz and the Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep brands have a lot to celebrate this 2011. First off, Mercedes-Benz celebrated its 125th anniversary with a huge party at the Opus, Resorts World Manila, last February while this year also marked the 70th founding year of the Jeep.

THE C 63 AMG Coupe, one of CATS’ major launches this year

Known as “kings of the road”, the Jeep served the country well during the dark days of World War II and CATS celebrated its founding year by banding together with several vintage military Jeep owners during a recent Jeep Jamboree dubbed as “Season’s Jeepings” which was an event organized by members of the Military Vehicles Collectors Club of the Philippines (MVCCP) and MD Juan Enterprises at the historic Fort Stotsenburg in Clark Air Base, Pampanga. Held last November, a number of the event’s participants came in and marched in their reproduction WW II military uniforms and even held a mock battle complete with pyrotechnics.

On the social calendar of CATS, they have been quite active this year.

For their American brands, they organized the “Jeep Thrill – off-road event” in an off-road trail in Pampanga using the Grand Cherokee, much to the delight of the local 4×4 enthusiasts. Fans of the tri-star German brand couldn’t get enough of the 3-day Mercedes-Benz Driving Experience held at the Subic International Airport, where some of their powerful AMG models were given full throttle as professional training drivers were flown from Germany to give technical courses for safe high-speed driving and maneuvers.

Aside from this, CATS also organized a driving event for its all-new C-Class for its customers and the media. This month also marked the start of a regular series of its AMG Power Breakfast runs, a monthly gathering of AMG Mercedes-Benz owners doing fun runs usually on early Sunday mornings to give their high-performance cars a regular dose of vehicular cardio exercise. Lastly, former Formula One greats Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard were in town hosted by Johnnie Walker and TW Steel respectively. Both F1 drivers are Mercedes-Benz brand ambassadors and car enthusiasts had a field day during their visit.

CATS Motors president Felix Ang, Daimler South East Asia CEO Wolfgang Huppen-bauer and Benz Club president Rene Nuñez celebrating the 125 years of Mercedes Benz

For its products, CATS introduced the following Mercedes-Benz models – the new-generation C-Class last August, the CLS 63 AMG last July and the new SLK roadster last October. Other product debuts included the C 63 AMG and E 63 AMG high performance sedans as well as the C 63 AMG Coupe.

Besides this, CATS also launched its line of Mercedes-Benz Actros trucks to the commercial vehicle market. As for its American auto brands, the Dodge Durango Citadel and the muscular Dodge Challenger had its debut last June while the new Jeep Grand Cherokee was launched last March at the Rockwell Tent. Although the first batch of the all-new Chrysler 300C came in last November, the official launch is slated sometime early 2012.

As of October, its 2011 sales for Mercedes-Benz had totaled 515 units with a 4.47 percent growth. It is the second largest market share with BMW edging it by 59 units for the 10-month period. Total number of units sold in this segment as of October this year was 2,161 units with these two brands cornering half the market share. Overall growth rate as of the said month is a mere 1.46 percent as three brands – Volvo, Porsche and MINI ended up in the negative growth territory.

Aside from the two dominant German brands, all the other premium car brands – Lexus, Jaguar and Audi had enjoyed positive growth for 2011. CATS also opened its Mercedes-Benz and Chrysler Alabang branch early this month adding to its Greenhills, Makati and Global City locations. Aside from this, CATS plans to launch its multi-storey expansion building located beside its Greenhills, EDSA headquarters early next year.