FRANKFURT MOTOR SHOW: Mercedes-Benz to debut C-Class Coupe in September

Update, July 30: since this story was published, motoring.com.au has been in receipt of new spy pics from Automedia, showing the new model (in red) wearing little in the way of camouflage.

Slickly styled and long awaited, the Mercedes C-Class Coupe is expected to stop the Frankfurt motor show in its tracks, come the opening day in September.

Designed to go head to head – and beat – the BMW 4 Series Coupe and Audi's now-ageing (but still beautiful) A5, the C-Class Coupe has been engineered to be the sharpest handler of the C-Class family.

It will carry over the much-praised interior and dashboard of the still-fresh C-Class sedan in a body that will be a little longer, lower, wider and more menacing than the well-regarded 204-series car.

With a body that is largely light-weight aluminium, the C-Class Coupe's exterior will copy its dash by borrowing heavily from the sedan (and why not? It's doing pretty well so far), but will get a sportier feel thanks to dropping its more supportive seats sitting 20mm lower.

The front centre console extends all the way into the rear, making it a strict two seater. If that wasn't enough to convince potential third occupants to find an alternative, there is less legroom and shoulder room than in the sedan because the seat bases have been moved forward and inboard to let the design team deliver the style Benz says customers demanded.

It will share the same look from forward of the front doors, including the same grille, headlights, bonnet and front quarter panels, but aft of that it's all change. Even so, it manages to lose 90kg over the current Coupe.

It shares a lot of its overall visual cues with the much bigger, much more expensive S-Class Coupe, although it has a traditional B-pillar where the bigger Benz is pillarless.

Where the outgoing C-Class Coupe was essentially a sleek glasshouse atop a relatively staid lower half, the new version will have more muscle in its rear end, with an especially pronounced shoulder line.

It's no secret that the C-Class Coupe range will be topped out by the storming C63 AMG version with 375kW from its biturbo 4.0-litre V8, but there will be a C 450 Sport version beneath that.

It should even be on offer with a turbo-diesel four-cylinder engine, though the entry-level option will be a C 200 Coupe with 115kW of power from a 2.0-litre turbo four, then it will step up to a 180kW, 370Nm C 300 version of the same motor.

While European Coupes will get all-wheel drive and manual gearboxes, the Australian ones are likely to be auto-only, which means seven- or nine-speed transmissions, depending on the powerplant.