Mercedes-Benz To Unveil GLC Coupe Concept at Auto Shanghai 2015 +VIDEO

By Henny Hemmes
Senior European Editor

Mercedes-Benz GLC Crossover Coupe Concept

Monday, at the 2015 Shanghai Auto Show, Mercedes-Benz will officially unveil a concept for a new sporty SUV, the GLC Coupe. “It is a design concept and not yet a technology concept - that is the next step,” said Peter Lehmann, Senior Manager for Research and Development, Engineering and realization Concept cars. I spoke to him during the evening before the show, when the concept car was unveiled for the media. “A design concept allows the designers more freedom, but there are ideas that cannot always be realized for production,” according to Mr. Lehmann. For instance air bags have to be integrated into the A-pillars, which adds to the thickness. When building a concept car you do not have to worry about such things.”

However, the CLG Coupe Concept is giving away quite a lot of the styling of the upcoming sporty, four-door SUV. Indeed the car is definitely going into production. It was confirmed today by Dr. Thomas Weber, responsible for R&D at Daimler. He did not want to say, however, when this will be. “First of all we will unveil the ‘normal GLC SUV, followed by the GLS. And we also have to wait for the arrival of the GLE this fall.”

It shows that Mercedes-Benz is planning to come up with a slew of new crossover SUVs, which is no surprise as you realize that last year 26 percent of the passenger cars sold in China was an SUV and Daimler expects this number to grow. Therefore, it is no surprise that the Mercedes GLC Coupe Concept is making its world debut in Shanghai, where the Auto show will open its doors for the media tomorrow.

The upcoming midsize coupe will be based on the C-Class platform. The length of the concept is 186 inches, with a wheelbase of 113.4 inches. The concept is only 63 inches high and we may expect the final product to have a low center of gravity, as Mercedes is developing a truly sporty SUV and has come up with the slogan Born to race on every ground. So we may expect excellent off-road qualities, thanks to standard 4 Matic all-wheel-drive and very sporty on-road capabilities. The suspension will be suitable for sporty handling and drivers will get a choice of 5 driving modes. It may also be an indication of the intentions of Mercedes that the concept is equipped with the V6 bi-turbo engine, that we know of in the GLA 45 AMC. It has 270 kW/367 pk en 520 Nm of torque and works together with the 9G-Tronic automatic transmission. The sleek and bold design shows us what we may expect of the future SUV generations of Mercedes-Benz.

The GLC Coupé will be introduced on the Chinese, North-American and European markets. Closer to its production, Mercedes will also decide about other markets. Dr. Weber told us on stage after the unveiling of the GLC Coupe, that the right-hand-drive-markets are very important to Mercedes, so I guess that the mid-size coupe will eventually also become available in England, South Africa, Australia and Japan. Please stay tuned!