The one who got away. Unicorn, whatever you’d like to call it. It’s the road not taken, the alternative that might have been. With Mercedes-Benz CLC, Daimler chose the safer route, the one with less controversy, less to talk about.
As seen in these initial sketches, a great deal of Chris Bangle's "flame surfacing" went into some of these; long sharp lines and kinks. More than this, SLR seems to have played a major role as well for inspiration, as some of the rears show in the drawings.
Riding on the same architecture as previous-generation C Coupe, the CLC is pretty new. However, it appears to be more conservative than the C-Class which, especially in AMG kit, looks wicked enough to scare off that wretched witch of the west herself. Perhaps an AMG version might break that shell?
Related entries:
New Mercedes-Benz CLC-Class Revealed
Mercedes CLC to Debut at Fashion Week Berlin 2008
Mercedes CLC Spied: C Class Sportcoupe to be renamed
