The CL550 is almost as quick to 60, delivers a smoother ride, can be had with all of the same luxury touches, and with the Sport Package found on our tester, it looks enough like a CL63 AMG to fool all but the most hardened Mercedes aficionados.
This car is a work of art. It’s really understated for a machine with a $150K-plus price tag, making it a perfect vehicle for the driver who has the money to spend on a car like this, but isn’t looking to necessarily flaunt their wealth. And you can’t go wrong with that engine, either. This car is fast and smooth. And, while it may look like just another Mercedes to the casual passerby, it’s unforgettable to any person who takes it for a ride.
Mercedes-Benz has released a wealth of details about the changes to the brand’s model year 2012 offerings. While some aren’t terrifically exciting, there are a few good nuggets of information pertaining to new engine options and body styles.
We’ve always wanted to be in love with the great big Mercedes CL proper 2+3 luxo-coupe, but it always ended up just sort of sitting there in the shadows of everything else going on around it in Stuttgart. It became such a wee niche that even the car’s project leader Hans Multhaupt was in favor of renaming it the S-class coupe. Frankly? We were always in favor of it, too. Still are
Mercedes-Benz has just unveiled a new way to liberate $110,000 to $175,000 from your wallet. The 2011 CL-Class is offered in two flavors, CL550 and CL600. The CL550 offers a 4.7-liter, biturbocharged V-8 which makes 429 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque. If that isn’t quick enough, the CL600 offers a plebian-crushing 5.5-liter, biturbocharged V-12, with 510 horsepower and 612 pound-feet of torque to separate you from the unwashed masses.
Out here on the flight-connection expressway, we’re right now in Stuttgart just before the Geneva auto show. We’re at this stop first and foremost to see Mercedes-Benz’s new direct-injected and twin-turbo engine called M157 that will fully replace the current M156/M159 (the latter in the SLS) within two years’ time. It’s still a big-cylindered V-8, but it’s now an all-aluminum AMG-specific version from scratch of the former Benz 5.5-liter motor that AMG had been using for a long time in previous-gen models (and still uses in the SLK etc).