Publications
Partners
CLK OR CLC REPLACEMENT?: This is Mercedes-Benz’s new C-Class coupe, featuring the best of the updated C-Class sedan’s styling and the promise of serious AMG addled pace.
Mercedes-Benz’s new C-Class coupe will be an awful lot more performance oriented than its predecessors.
The company’s entry-level two-door offering currently runs on a rather outdated second-generation C-Class chassis architecture and as a result is not the most accomplished car dynamically.
This is all about to change.
Set for an early March 2011 reveal at the Geneva auto show, this third-generation C-Class coupe shares styling and chassis tweaks similar to the C-Class four-door facelift, debuting at January's Detroit auto show.
As a whole the design is a generic evolution of the C-Class architecture, with the rear third a huge improvement over the current CLC's odd, hatchback-like styling.
The CLS-inspired quad-illumination front headlights work well with the C-Class proportions and the new coupe looks very much like a slightly smaller CLK - which is the whole idea.
Unfortunately the new C-Class coupe will not inherit the CLK’s trademark pillarless side-glass cabin profile, a styling feature that did much to enhance the elegance of the CLK's design.
CLC Black Series?
Expected engine options for the new C-Class coupe are 198kW worth of 3-litre V6 and a 3.5-litre producing 222kW.
Interestingly, German sources reveal the new C-Class coupe will take over the position of entry-level two-door AMG vacated by its discontinued larger sibling, the CLK hardtop.
This could see a 4.7-litre V8 bi-turbo producing 320kW, shifting via a seven-speed MCT transmission, gunning straight for the M3 coupe.
There is talk of an even more performance-biased Black Series variant too, the latter of course, ironically, being the last evolution of the erstwhile CLK 63 AMG. Likely engine candidate for the C-Class Black Series coupe will be AMG's 5.5-litre bi-turbo V8 in 420kW trim.
All details will be confirmed by the first week of March, when the new Mercedes-Benz two-door goes on show in Geneva.
The company’s entry-level two-door offering currently runs on a rather outdated second-generation C-Class chassis architecture and as a result is not the most accomplished car dynamically.
This is all about to change.
Set for an early March 2011 reveal at the Geneva auto show, this third-generation C-Class coupe shares styling and chassis tweaks similar to the C-Class four-door facelift, debuting at January's Detroit auto show.
As a whole the design is a generic evolution of the C-Class architecture, with the rear third a huge improvement over the current CLC's odd, hatchback-like styling.
The CLS-inspired quad-illumination front headlights work well with the C-Class proportions and the new coupe looks very much like a slightly smaller CLK - which is the whole idea.
Unfortunately the new C-Class coupe will not inherit the CLK’s trademark pillarless side-glass cabin profile, a styling feature that did much to enhance the elegance of the CLK's design.
CLC Black Series?
Expected engine options for the new C-Class coupe are 198kW worth of 3-litre V6 and a 3.5-litre producing 222kW.
Interestingly, German sources reveal the new C-Class coupe will take over the position of entry-level two-door AMG vacated by its discontinued larger sibling, the CLK hardtop.
This could see a 4.7-litre V8 bi-turbo producing 320kW, shifting via a seven-speed MCT transmission, gunning straight for the M3 coupe.
There is talk of an even more performance-biased Black Series variant too, the latter of course, ironically, being the last evolution of the erstwhile CLK 63 AMG. Likely engine candidate for the C-Class Black Series coupe will be AMG's 5.5-litre bi-turbo V8 in 420kW trim.
All details will be confirmed by the first week of March, when the new Mercedes-Benz two-door goes on show in Geneva.
