BEIJING MOTOR SHOW: Benz Concept Coupé SUV

Mercedes-Benz is almost guaranteed to bring its Beijing motor show-stopping Concept Coupé SUV into production within a year, sources at the premium German car-maker have revealed.

The swoopy-looking soft-road monster is dominated by its long, sleek roofline, even as it sits on the M-Class architecture. Benz is positioning the 4.9-metre Concept Coupé SUV as an extension of the strategy it has already used to turn the conventional E-Class into the sleeker CLS and the A-Class hatch into the CLA coupe-sedan.

Mercedes-Benz sources refused to be drawn into comparisons with its Bavarian rival, even though the X6 has been on sale so long it’s less than a year from replacement, while the production version of the smaller but similarly themed X3-based X4 crossover-coupe was shown to the world at last week’s New York show.

While it seems to be very late in the crossover-coupe craze to be claiming a leadership role, sources at Mercedes instead claimed it was following its own path and its Concept Coupé SUV owes nothing whatsoever to the success of the X6 in North America and, oddly, Italy.

“It’s sensual as a coupe, visionary as an SUV,” Mercedes-Benz’s Head of Design, Gorden Wagener, insists.

"The Concept Coupé SUV stands out thanks to its extreme proportions and in doing so interprets our hallmark Mercedes coupé design idiom perfectly.

“With its superior sportiness it conveys a sense of modern luxury and aesthetic aspirations of sensual clarity."

Its body is defined not only by its roofline, but also by its door-handles, which are inset into the bodywork, and its frameless windows, plus its enormous width and flared wheel-arches.

Mercedes-Benz has intentionally given the Concept Coupé SUV its sportier-style, single-bar grille flanked by a pair of full LED multi-beam headlights and a relatively short front overhang.

It also introduces LED indicators that light up in sequence to point the way for following cars to see. Well, it introduces them to Mercedes-Benz, anyway – they’ve been in production at Audi since the last R8 facelift and they’re available on the new TT.

Almost comically, Mercedes-Benz is claiming a leadership role in coupe-style SUVs, pointing to its work with the CLS to shore up the shaky claim.

“Developing and creating new model families and vehicle classes has traditionally been one of the strengths of Mercedes-Benz, the inventor of the automobile,” it insisted.

“This is particularly obvious in the history of its coupés, and most especially in the very recent past. Models such as the four-door coupés or the shooting brakes in the CLS-Class have not only created completely new vehicle classes, but have also had a lasting influence on the model policies of different manufacturers, found numerous imitators and proved to be an outstanding sales success.”

So, Mercedes-Benz isn’t just claiming a leadership role in the SUV-coupe field, but is intimating that others will copy it…

While officially dubbed a “design study”, the Concept Coupé SUV is headed for production at the already-overcrowded SUV production plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Mercedes-Benz insiders this week admitted the plant’s capacity was already causing it to miss out on up to 30,000 SUV sales a year and it was in the midst of a revamp to boost its output.

Powered by the new twin-turbocharged direct-injection petrol engine from the new C 400 sedan, it has 245kW of power at 5500rpm and 480Nm of torque from 1400rpm to 4000rpm.

Hooked up the M-Class’s standard 4MATIC all-wheel drive, it moves the game forward by introducing a nine-speed automatic transmission to improve performance and lower fuel consumption. No heavier than the existing seven-speed transmission that is spread thinly across the Mercedes-Benz brand, the nine-speed unit will find its way across all rear-drive Benzes in the next round of facelifts

Benz claims no performance figures and delivers no weight numbers, but hints that both must be significant by fitting the SUV with carbon-ceramic brakes all-round.

The production version of the car won’t go the market with the concept car’s 305/45 R22 tyres, either, but is likely to arrive with a range of wheel and tyre sizes from 18- to 21-inch. All of this rides on the mutli-link rear suspension and double wishbone front-end of the M-Class.

It also receives Benz’s latest evolution of electro-mechanical power steering, which helps it deliver an array of switchable driving modes that’s wider than usual. There is the normal Comfort mode as the default driving set-up for the air suspension, steering, transmission, throttle mapping and electronic safety nets, but it adds Sport, Sport +, the customisable Individual mode and a Slippery mode for off-road driving.

Riding on a 2916mm wheelbase, Mercedes-Benz designers insist it has avoided the X6’s issues with rear-seat legroom, headroom and shoulder width, plus allows for greater luggage capacity despite having an even more pronounced swoop to its rear roofline.

It could go into production with something very close to the concept car’s 1739mm height, too, along with its 1683mm front track and 1768mm rear track, and Benz isn’t shy about emphasising the width with the Concept Coupé, which measures 2208mm from mirror tip to mirror tip.