YOU CAN BE all you want to be in Hong Kong. So, when Mercedes-Benz China (MBC) says that its new four-door CLS cars are coupes, I wish the marque luck - as you might an old friend on his latest career reinvention. Motoring writers in the west have been less pragmatic. Coupes have two doors, not four, they said. In September, Gavin Conway of Britain's Sunday Times warned readers to be prepared for 'some grief if you dare to call [the CLS] a coupe'.
In Hong Kong, we don't care whether a car's a coupe or a saloon, as long as we look good. Besides, the success of the BMW 6-Series and Bentley Continental GT has shown how the world's rich are shifting from big saloons to coupes, and Mazda threw the rulebook out the window with its popular four-door RX-8. So Mercedes-Benz has done well to add nip and tuck to its range. The marque was beginning to remind me of one of those ageing socialites you see in the hushed boutiques of the Landmark: sweet things who are admired rather than desired as the embodiment of intelligence, elegance and influence. The S-Class, E-Class and SLs are still in demand, but they seem flabby next to designer Chris Bangle's angular BMWs, and dull against Pininfarina's racy Quattroporte. Not that many Hong Kong buyers cared. Motoring has long said that if Mercedes-Benz put its star on a Wellcome trolley, local punters would queue around the block for one.
Then, last May, Mercedes-Benz, this Audrey Hepburn of marques, suddenly popped out of a cake, threw off its little black dress and flaunted its most exciting asset: the new, sculpted SLK. Somebody must have put something in the Stuttgart water - or taken JD Power's consumer-survey criticism to heart - because the marque then facelifted the C and A classes and implanted some cash into a coupe concept, the VisionCLS, the wow of the 2003 Frankfurt Motor Show.
The result is the stunning CLS 500 ($1.15 million), with a 302 brake-horsepowered poke of a five-litre V8. This black one's a corker in Macau. The CLS tells Southern China that you're stylish and racy, with a wallet to match. Tight flanks create a synergy of dynamic curves, and shallow glass shouts sleekness on 18-inch light-alloy wheels. The L-shaped bi-xenons resemble the S-Class and the chrome grille is straighter for more 'boss snarl'. At last, here's a Mercedes-Benz that can look the 6-Series in the lifted, realigned eye without the pep of an AMG package. The rear doors look fine and access is easier than in the two-door BMW 645Ci, but tighter than the Quattroporte.
The CLS is also available as a 268bhp, 3.5-litre V6 ($890,000). A hot, 469bhp 55 AMG version ($1.65 million) is due soon, and there's talk of a V6 diesel, but the V8's the model to have. The 3.5-litre might suffice in Hong Kong traffic, and the V6's claimed 0-100km/h (in seven seconds) is impressive. But Conway says the smaller CLS 'doesn't feel particularly swift on the road'.
So impress all the way in the V8. I hear all seven CLS orders have been for the bigger car in Macau, versus an even split of about 100 orders in Hong Kong.
