Mercedes-Benz E-Class Coupe

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Mercedes-Benz E-Class Coupe

STUTTGART, Germany — Mercedes-Benz has revealed its new 2010 E-Class coupe in a series of official photographs. The images come weeks ahead of the new two-door's scheduled premiere at the 2009 Geneva Auto Show and a full six months before it is due to reach North American showrooms.

The upmarket Mercedes-Benz coupe arrives 12 years after the original W124-based model was replaced in the German carmaker's lineup by the highly successful CLK-Class coupe. Now the CLK is the victim of a new marketing strategy that aims to better align Mercedes-Benz's image-building coupe and cabriolet models with the automaker's volume-selling products.
In appearance, the reborn E-Class coupe borrows heavily from the new E-Class sedan. The two cars share the same edgy styling cues, including distinctive twin trapezoidal headlamp treatment and wrap-around taillamps. However, Mercedes-Benz designers have been careful not to throw away some of the CLK's more likable visual features, such as its prominent grille and uninterrupted greenhouse, which continues to do without a B-pillar.

As tradition dictates, the 2010 Mercedes-Benz E-Class Coupe will form the basis of a new E-Class cabriolet — the replacement for today's CLK cabriolet. Look for the Mercedes E-Class cabriolet to be unveiled at the 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show in September. It will retain a cloth roof, despite rumors suggesting Mercedes-Benz's strong-selling open top could switch to a folding-hardtop arrangement like those seen on its roadsters.

Despite Benz's efforts to tighten familial ties between the new E-Class coupe and the 2010 Mercedes-Benz E-Class sedan revealed in Detroit, the new coupe hasn't grown much over the CLK. At 184.9 inches long and 70.3 inches wide, it is just 1.8 inches longer and wider than the outgoing CLK. At 54.8 inches tall, though, it stands 0.6 inch shorter.

The platform architecture is all-new, though, as the 2010 E-Class Coupe rides atop a modified version of the newly developed W212 platform, also used beneath the E-Class sedan. The coupe has a 108.6-inch wheelbase — an increase of 1.7 inches over the outgoing CLK.

The added dimensions benefit the 2+2 configured cabin, which gains added shoulder- and legroom, according to Mercedes-Benz. The interior also mimics its sedan sibling's design with an angular dashboard fascia. The E-Class coupe's newly developed front seats — which have integral seatbelts and a new backrest design — are sportier, though.

You'll be confronted with a long options list for the 2010 E-Class Coupe. Among the items is the company's new Attention Assist, which monitors driver reactions and warns of potential drowsiness, and Active Bonnet, which uses hydraulics to raise the rear of the hood by nearly 2 inches during front impacts to increase pedestrian protection. Pre-Safe Brake will brake the car from speed to a complete standstill when onboard radar detects an imminent collision, while Adaptive High-beam Assist employs a camera to monitor surrounding traffic and dip the high beam.

The launch of the 2010 Mercedes-Benz E-Class coupe sees the introduction of Benz's first four-cylinder gasoline engine with direct injection. The turbocharged 1.8-liter unit, part of an across-the-board downsizing program, produces 204 horsepower and will be used in a base E250 CGI coupe model. We've been told, though, by a Mercedes-Benz official that the company's direct-injected gasoline engines will not come to the U.S. at launch due to our lower-octane fuel.

Other gasoline engines include an updated, direct-injected 3.5-liter V6 with 292 horsepower in the E350 CGI coupe, as well as a carryover 388-hp 5.5-liter V8 in the top-of-the-line E550. The success of diesel CLK models in Europe has prompted Mercedes-Benz to launch the E-Class coupe with two common-rail engines: a 204-hp, twin-turbocharged, 2.2-liter four-cylinder in the E250 CDI coupe and a 231-hp 3.0-liter V6 in the E350 CDI coupe. On the European test cycle, the diesel four boasts an impressive combined fuel economy that's the U.S. equivalent of 44 mpg.

Before the end of 2009, Mercedes-Benz will also reveal a flagship E63 AMG coupe model running a 500-hp version of AMG's 6.2-liter V8.