Mercedes-Benz teases Mercedes MLC in Alabama

Mercedes MLC Teased

As far back as June we reported that Mercedes was planning on building a rival to the BMW X6 – which we dubbed the Mercedes MLC.

Which made us conclude – when Mercedes announced it was adding a fifth model to its production line at it Alabama plant in the U.S. – that the car they would be churning out would be the M-Class Coupe. And that seems to be confirmed.

We’ve got a photo (above) taken at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, when Mercedes were busy announcing that they were adding a new production line, spending $350 million and adding a very useful 400 jobs to build a new car from 2015.

And it seems clear that whatever Mercedes are going to build in Alabama – and whatever they call it – it certainly appears to be an SUV Coupe of some description.

And, as we’ve said before, that makes a lot of sense.

BMW’s X6 has been a runaway success – sales are about twice what was anticipated – and Mercedes want a piece of the ‘Lifestyle’ SUV market. And the easiest way to do that is to churn out a coupe version of the new, and very convincing, Mercedes ML.

It’s always possible Mercedes may surprise us all and produce a coupe version of the GL instead, but that would be a very strange lump with very odd styling dynamics – even if it may go down very well in China.

The photo we’ve got came from Jalopnik and was taken by @Dawn_Kent, who uploaded it to Twitter. When asked about the banner they’d put up at the Tuscaloosa announcement, Mercedes said we shouldn’t read too much in to the shape beneath the drape.

But they would say that, wouldn’t they?

By Cars UK