Already confirmed for the Beijing Auto Show that kicks of next week is the Audi Q5. Another German production version compact SUV will also make its world debut in China, the Mercedes-Benz GLK. Why China? China became Audi’s second-largest market after Germany as sales increased 24.8 percent.

Mercedes also wants to take advantage of the growing popularity of SUVs in China. We saw the GLK FREESIDE and GLK TOWNSIDE concepts at the 2008 Detroit Auto Show where executives told us that the production model won’t be too far off from the two studies.

Features from both concepts are expected to be incorporated in the production GLK slated for fall 2008 for Europe and January 2009 for the U.S. Pricing is expected to be just below the X3 from BMW which starts at $38k.

Mercedes-Benz Vision GLK FREESIDE and TOWNSIDE Gallery:

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