Mercedes Revamps its Swanky Coupe
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This is the Mercedes that even other Benz owners covet. The 2011 Mercedes-Benz CL-Class is an opulent throwback to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby era of luxurious peregrination -- that’s travel to you and me.
So successful has this exclusive four-seat coupe been as a standard bearer for the company that its gestation into its second generation has been gentle. "It's a bit of teeth whitening rather than a face lift," commented one Mercedes official. "It's just got a nicer smile."
Part of the readjustment of the CL's pearly whites is the introduction of LED fog lamps on the front and a slight tightening of the hood lines. At the rear, the reversing lights have been replaced by LED units and moved from side lamp clusters onto the trunk lid. These are not major changes and in the later case, and not particularly flattering, either. For the rest of the coachwork, the curvaceous lines look unchanged as is the car's low, long roof line, windshield rake and high belt lines.
It's hardly surprising, as under the pressed steel skin, old and new CL models share exactly the same underbody apart from a nominal amount of bracketry to accommodate the really new stuff about this new car, which goes on sale this November in the U.S.
2011 Mercedes Benz CL550 4MATIC Front Three Quarters Vertical
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The CL550 4Matic gets a new engine option, and the lineup gets many of the recent technical innovations (which we motoring hacks call, 'the toys') first seen on the current S-Class. Interestingly, the CL also gets the lane-keeping assistance system, plus the infra-red night vision system, which is now in its second generation.
Let's do the engine first. The brand-new, 4.6-liter, 429 horsepower V-8 unit is fitted with two turbochargers and direct fuel injection and goes under the hood of the CL550 4Matic. It manages the remarkable trick of being not only 12 percent more powerful than its predecessor, but with a peak torque output raised by 32 percent from 391 to 519 pound feet, it's also gutsier. At the same time it's between 10 and 15 percent more fuel efficient and produces 23 percent less carbon dioxide greenhouse gas. Oh, and it moves the car from 0 to 60 in 4.9 seconds.
How do they do that? The combustion precision afforded by the spray-guided direct-injection and piezo-quartz injection timing is largely responsible for this superlative performance and economy. "You put the fuel where the air is," said one Mercedes engineer.
At the top end of the CL range for the moment until the updated AMG big boys arrive is the CL600, which continues to be powered by Merc's single cam, three-valve, 5.5-liter twin-turbo V-12, for those Gatsby types for whom those extra four cylinders say so much. There's not much in it for outright go between this and the new 4.6-liter, but this big old 510 horsepower, 612 pound-feet slugger punches out more torque and motors to 60 mph in 4.5 seconds. Benz's excellent seven-speed transmission can't handle this amount of torque so you'll have to slum it with a five-speed, although with that amount of twist, we highly doubt anyone buying the CL600 will be all that bummed about two less gears.
2011 Mercedes Benz CL550 4MATIC Side View 2011 Mercedes Benz CL550 4MATIC Side View Passenger 2011 Mercedes Benz CL550 4MATIC Rear Three Quarters Passenger
2011 Mercedes Benz CL600 Back Seats 2011 Mercedes Benz CL600 Front Seats 2011 Mercedes Benz CL600 Front Seats 2
Read more: http://www.motortrend.com/roadtests/coupes/1007_2011_mercedes_benz_cl_class_first_look/index.html#ixzz0txjJzcyV
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