What's all this about?

In order to make things easier to understand for customers, Mercedes-Benz is creating a hierarchy of badges for its SUVs, roadsters and four-door coupés that fit better with the more traditional saloons upon which they're based.

Explain this to me.

OK, beginning with the SUVs, all of them will now have GL badges. This is an homage to the evergreen G-Wagen, which is the only 4x4 to buck the trend by staying as the G-Class. The third letter in the SUVs' badges ties them in to the saloon line to which they're most closely linked, so GLA and A-Class, GLC (formerly the GLK, a model not sold previously in the UK) and C-Class, GLE (formerly the ML/M-Class) and GLE Coupé (Merc's forthcoming X6 rival) and the E-Class and GLS (formerly the GL) and S-Class.

Has anything else changed?

In the two-roadster range, the SLK becomes the SLC - three letters we last saw in Mercedes world in 1981, on the C107 - and the SL stays the same, as it has 'iconic status'. The CLA and CLS are also unchanged, although this confuses us as the CLS is linked to the E-Class, rather than the S-Class. Oh well.

What else is Mercedes doing?

All the motive power nameplates are changing too, so no more of things like BlueTec Plug-In Hybrid, Electric Drive, F-Cell, BlueTec and CDI. From now on, any Mercedes that isn't powered by petrol will have the following nomenclature: 'c' for compressed natural gas; 'd' for diesel; 'e' for anything with plug-in electric drive or full electric power; 'f' for fuel cell; and 'h' for non-plug-in hybrids. Petrol models have no suffix at all and the 4Matic badging for all-wheel drive continues, ahead of its 30th anniversary in 2015.

Matt Robinson - 14 Nov 2014