Mercedes CLC (2008): first official pictures

By Ben Pulman

First Official Pictures

27 January 2008 18:00

This is Mercedes’ new CLC, only it's not quite so new. Underneath it’s really the old Sports Coupe with a nose from the C-class grafted on to give it more modern engines and help it pass the latest crash regulations. In fact, the new CLC has exactly the same wheelbase (2715mm) as the old Sports Coupe, and the same size boot.

Money. To the accountants at Stuttgart it made more sense to heavily revise the current car rather than to start afresh. That doesn’t mean the engineers haven’t been hard at work though: Merc claims over 1100 parts on the CLC are new or revised compared to the old car.

Merc was never going to stop making the Sports Coupe. Over 320,000 have found homes since 2001, and with over 70 percent of cars sold being conquest sales, and then over two-thirds of Sports Coupe buyers sticking with the Mercedes brand it’s a car Stuttgart cannot afford to be without.

Click 'Next' below to read the rest of the story

By Ben Pulman