Steeped in heritage, Mercedes-Benz Malaysia’s most important Ipoh outlet gets an upgrade

Since 1906, Ipoh has been home to Malaysia’s longest serving car dealer – Cycle & Carriage - the company that introduced Mercedes-Benz, the inventor of the automobile, to Malaysia (and Singapore).

There is no future without a past, and the future of the Mercedes-Benz in Malaysia is one that is intertwined with Cycle and Carriage – now Mercedes-Benz's largest dealer network here – which is built on a strong foundation laid by its early days in Ipoh's tin mining boom era.

For these tin mining tycoons, only one luxury car is acceptable, a Mercedes-Benz sedan with a three-pointed star on the hood. Any other brand is perceived to be merely frivolous play things for their immature children born with a silver spoon. The ones who are actually making the money, must be seen in a Mercedes-Benz.

The names of these tycoons who built Malaysia are forever etched into the names of many roads around Ipoh, and for them, Mercedes-Benz equals Cycle & Carriage.

Before plastics and aluminum replaced tin, Cycle & Carriage’s Ipoh outlet was selling so many more Mercedes-Benz cars and trucks that the German company gifted the city a giant logo, to be installed atop Gunung Rapat, overseeing the entrance to Ipoh.

The current location of Cycle & Carriage’s Ipoh has been in service since 1981 and in the late ‘90s, it became the first Mercedes-Benz showroom in Malaysia to adopt the Autohaus format showroom display and identity concept.

Now, that same 56,000 square feet, 9-car display area outlet has been upgraded to Mercedes-Benz’s latest retail format, referred to internally as MAR 2020, which to a regular customer, simply means more digital touch points, better presentation cars - now arranged in an arch pattern, 9 cars in total - with overhead lighting carefully adjusted to mirror natural daylight, and a barrier-less, seamless transition between one part of the showroom to another.

With the launch of the Mercedes-Benz EQA and soon-to-be-launched Mercedes-Benz EQS, upgrades are needed to keep in-line with the zero-carbon image of EQ products. 

The upgraded Cycle & Carriage Ipoh building features a 72 kWp (kiloWatts peak) solar panel supplementing its power supply, while a rain water harvesting system cuts water use.

Located along Ipoh’s ‘Auto City’ Jalan Kuala Kangsar stretch, Cycle & Carriage Ipoh is now the most modern looking car showroom there, with its huge pylon reaching for the sky serving as a landmark for the city folks.

Behind, the workshop has 20 service bays – 13 with hoists, 4 for repairs, 3 for express service. Since this is a MAR 2020 retail format autohaus, digital touchpoints are extended to after-sales as well.

The adjacent body & paint facility has another 11 bays, equipped with the latest Mercedes-Benz factory-approved collision repair tools to restore an accident-damaged Mercedes-Benz cars.

Like all Mercedes-Benz service centres, the outlet offers Drop & Go service for busy owners who want to drop off their cars after the outlet’s operating hours, for it to be serviced the next morning.

This is Cycle and Carriage’s fourth outlet to feature the latest MAR 2020 retail format, after Mutiara Damansara, Alor Setar, and Johor Bahru. The company, which is part of Singapore’s Jardine Cycle & Carriage Group, has 11 outlets across Peninsular Malaysia.