Concept Style Coupé hints at new junior Mercedes-Benz CLS

Concept Style Coupé heralds compact CLS

By Simon Harris

19 April 2012

Mercedes-Benz will launch a small four-door coupé based on the Concept Style Coupé unveiled at the Beijing Motor Show.

The concept car is based on the new A-Class platform and looks like a scaled down version of the Mercedes-Benz CLS four-door coupe.

"The Concept Style Coupé is expressive and powerful in its design," said Dr Dieter Zetsche, chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler AG and head of Mercedes-Benz Cars. "We are staking our claim very clearly here. This is the model against which sporty vehicles in the executive segment will have to measure themselves in future."

"The almost production-standard Concept Style Coupé sets a new benchmark for avantgarde design in the executive segment," said Gorden Wagener, head of design at Mercedes-Benz.

The four-seat car is expected to cost from around £20,000 when it goes on sale and effectively is a replacement for the CLC coupé which was discontinued in the UK in 2010, but with four doors and four individual seats it's expected to have broader appeal.

With Comand Online and the various Mercedes-Benz apps developed specifically to be used and controlled while on the move, as well as with the ability to browse the internet when the vehicle is stationary, Mercedes-Benz says the occupants of the Concept Style Coupé are able to maintain their digital lifestyle at all times.

Mercedes-Benz says it is convinced the future lies with cloud computing. The software for the Comand Online applications is not stored in the vehicle, but runs off the Daimler Vehicle Backend.

The company claims the advantage is that the system can be updated with new applications "over-the-air" (OTA) through a mobile phone connection, without needing to take the car into the workshop. The software is thus always up to date, irrespective of the development cycles of either the vehicles or the consumer electronic devices.

The concept car ispowered by a 2.0-litre version of Mercedes-Benz's new petrol engine family with 211 bhp, combined with 4Matic all-wheel drive system and the 7G-DCT dual clutch automatic transmission.