Mercedes CLS new look

The curvy CLS coupe is headed for a full model change and there is a big difference in its new look.  The CLS is still a swoopy four-door sedan with a coupe roofline, but it's been working out – big-time.

The result is pumped-out guards, a muscular nose and a more-brutal AMG-style profile."The new CLS points the way forward for the future perceptible design idiom of Mercedes-Benz", explains Professor Gorden Wagener, head of design at Mercedes-Benz.

Wagener hinted at his direction for the CLS in January at the Detroit Motor Show, using a giant silver sculpture, and the reality will be delivered at the Paris Motor Show in October.

Australian sales will begin in the first half of 2011.  "It's next year. We don't have a date yet," says David McCarthy, spokesman for Benz in Australia.

"It certainly won't be here in the first quarter. Probably some time after that. We're trying to get a preview car for the Australian International Motor Show, in Sydney in October."

Benz was first into the four-door coupe business in 2003 and, although some people compared the car with AU Falcon from Ford Australia, it was a hit which sold 170,000 copies worldwide.

The new car has the same proportions with a low coupe-style roof over its four doors, but changes include a free-standing radiator grille, full LED headlamps - claimed as a world first - as well as heavy haunches. Inside, the new CLS has a wraparound cockpit with an integrated central display, softer leather trims, and a 'sewn' effect on the dashtop.

Mercedes is also planning a high degree of customisation for the CLS, with a range of exotic fabrics, leathers and trims to allow owners to tailor their car.  "The CLS has been a very popular car in Australia. It's a vehicle that hasn't stolen sales from anywhere else in the range and we've got a bank of customers there that love the car," McCarthy says

"It pioneered a segment and there are lots of imitators that really don't seem to have the essence of the car. The new CLS is going to give them something else to follow."