On Friday, Daimler AG's luxury car unit, Mercedes-Benz said that its first-quarter sales in mainland China soared 112% year on year to 23,610 units, making China its fastest-growing market globally.

Mercedes-Benz said on its website that in March, sales of Mercedes-Benz, smart, AMG and Mayback cars on the Chinese mainland rose 62% from previous year to 8,280 units.

Klaus Maier, President and CEO of Mercedes-Benz China Ltd., said that the company attained its best performance in China last year and that the continued rising impetus in the first quarter reinforced the company's confidence and laid a good basis for the entire year's development.

Last year, Mercedes-Benz sold 68,500 vehicles in China, 77% more than in 2008.

In great part due to Government incentives to increase domestic consumption, China's passenger car sales mounted 63% year on year to 1.26 million units last month. First-quarter sales boosted 76% year on year to 3.52 million units.

Different from the earlier model, this test car sports big cross-drilled brake discs behind larger sports wheels and, at the back, dual exhaust tips.

While the wheelbase of the new ML-Class seems more or less unmodified from the present model, shorter overhangs front and rear point to a little more compact body than the 2009 model.