First Drive Review
Strength, durability, rationality. After more than a century of building cars guided by such forthright German principles, Mercedes-Benz has lately become enamored with another, slightly more Italian idea: loveliness.
Not to imply that Gottlieb D.'s boys haven't built a few lookers through the years—the 1955 300SL Gullwing, for example. But when the head office has asked for four doors, the designers have usually answered with flat sides, large trunks, spacious back seats, and workman-like cockpits. German convention holds that cars should be practical and a Mercedes even more so. With the CLS, Mercedes tells German convention to shove it.
Painted silver, the CLS shimmers like a puddle of mercury caught in a wind gust. Huge wheels and razor slashes of side glass put the exclamation point on the fulsome whoosh of bodywork. French-stitched leather is everywhere, and burled wood spills off the dash and pools around the shifter. Fine beads of chrome finish off many of the seams. The CLS is gorgeous.
The two adjoined bucket seats in the back are also tighter than the bench in the shorter E-class. Passengers can feel shut in behind the high doorsills and low-flying arched roof. With a drag coefficient of 0.31, the shape is clean, but it won't set aerodynamic records, thanks partly to the elegantly tapered tail (big butts are actually better for airflow—and trunk space).
Italians don't sweat much over such details when there are eyes to dazzle. Mercedes has decided to adopt the more Mediterranean view. "What's wrong with a little emotion?" asks Bernhard Glaser, general manager of passenger-car product management for Mercedes-Benz USA. "We don't always want to be known for boring cars. We saw a niche between the E and the S for a halo car, and we wanted to give the brand a more dynamic image."
If it sounds like a casting call for a coupe, that's because it is—sort of. Mercedes insists that the slippery CLS is "the world's first four-door coupe" and hopes to pit its pretty face and convenient rear doors against a few sumptuous but cramped two-door coupes, namely, the 645Ci from arch nemesis BMW. Athletic sedans like the BMW 545i, Lexus GS430, and Audi A6 are also in the crosshairs.
The CLS's price will be high—about $65,000 to start for a CLS500 with the 302-hp, 5.0-liter V-8, the only non-AMG version coming to America (Europeans also get a 3.5-liter V-6). That's about $8000 more than an E500. Hence, worldwide production will be low, about 30,000 cars per year, of which maybe 7000 to 10,000 will come to the States starting in January 2005. The fashion treadmill turns fast, so the CLS lifespan may be shorter—perhaps only six years, the company says.
Even if the CLS bombs in year two, the financial gamble seems relatively small. Unlike most new Mercedes models, the CLS doesn't introduce any engines or technology, borrowing liberally from the E-class on a widened and stretched E-class floor. Mercedes says 35 percent of CLS components share a part number with the E, including its electrohydraulic brake system and Airmatic DC suspension, which uses driver and computer inputs to tailor the shock and air-spring stiffness to driving conditions. A faster steering ratio and larger brake discs are CLS exclusives. Those, combined with a claimed lower center of gravity and standard 18-inch wheels, are enticements, Mercedes believes, for keen drivers to step up from the E500. The CLS will not get all-wheel drive, however.
Chasing sunbeams around the hills north of Rome—where else but Italy would Mercedes choose to introduce its most Latin car?—the CLS500 proved it should be driven in rotation with an E500 to discern any real differences between the two. Agility, stability, straight-line gallop, and a certain remoteness to the controls are hallmarks of every big Benz, and the CLS500 is no different. It is immensely competent but apparently no feistier than the E-class or, for that matter, the 645Ci.
The job of being feisty falls to the CLS55 AMG. Medicated with 469 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque from a supercharged 5.4-liter V-8, the CLS55 should rumble its way to 60 mph in about 4.5 seconds, predicts Mercedes. Again, nothing much is new here besides the shapely body. The engine and its five-speed automatic carry over from other AMG projectiles, including the E55 and SL55. The eight-piston calipers and drilled brake rotors—14.2 inches of hugeness in front, 13.0 in back—come from the SL55.
Hunkier plastic in the nose, along the sills, and on the tail, with its small spoiler and underbody tray, joins with 19-inch five-spoke wheels to salt in the visual wow. Alcantara pseudo-suede in four available color combinations accents the seats, and brushed aluminum the dashboard. An AMG steering wheel, doorsills, and instrument cluster complete the trim-out.
Mercedes plans to keep the CLS55's price premium over the base car about the same as the E55's, or $24,300. That should put the CLS55 at about $90,000 when it makes it to the U.S. in March. Only 1500 units per year will sail for America.
While it had our attention (and it definitely did), Mercedes showed us the SLK55 AMG, which went on sale in October for about $55,000 (Mercedes is keeping pricing secret for all its new models). Revamped this year with an all-new body and a remarkably improved chassis, the SLK roadster gets a nonsupercharged version of the 5.4-liter V-8 billed at 355 horsepower and 376 pound-feet of torque. The power goes aft through a seven-speed automatic to a reinforced differential fitted with an oil cooler.
Bimetallic brake rotors, similar to the SL65's, feature a steel disc bolted to an aluminum hub to fight fade, curtail warping, and reduce weight.
And there will be plenty of speed to scrub off, thanks to furious acceleration (60 mph in a claimed 4.7 seconds) and a suspension that says, "Let's fool around!" Some quick racetrack laps had the SLK55 doing all the right moves: precision path control, throttle-assisted steering, and fierce grip. A German Ferrari? Team Stuttgart is definitely getting closer.
Germans thinking like Italians. This could be big.
