The CLC was new all right, but not that new.
If I were the Mercedes marketeer in charge of this car, I would have ditched the “Sports Coupe” name for good and just call it the CLC. Constant references to that old alias muddied the issue of how new this newcomer was, especially among drivers with a long memory – long enough to know that the original C-Class Sports Coupe made its international debut back in 2000.
Eight years is an eternity in the car business. During this time, as the Sports Coupe soldiered on, Mercedes-Benz redid its clever little A-Class, introduced its boxy B-Class, launched its W204 C-Class and made its S-Class state-of-the-art like never before.
When the Sports Coupe finally got upgraded in its eighth year of existence, Mercedes engineers made over 1100 changes, the most obvious being the exterior’s heavy facelift and the interior’s light refresh.
The doors and rear fenders had been carried over unchanged, but everywhere else had been extensively redesigned. That striking LED third brake light was nice, but it displaced the previous model’s cool tailgate lower window. Inside the cockpit, the best parts were the revamped instrument meters (carbon fibre-patterned and with red needles that “danced” on start-up) and the steering wheel (a sporty three-spoker). The rest of the cabin was basically business as usual.
So, it was more of the same Sports Coupe from Mercedes-Benz, with cosmetic changes that counted and minor revisions that worked on the road. The CLC could be newer, yes, but its “old” pricing was fine by me.
