A quick look at the second Mansory Carbonado, which was in glossy carbon fibre and his extremes interpretations of the Mercedes GL and G-Wagon, before stepping back to Mercedes giant hall at the Frankfurt Messe.
The first car I wanted to review in detail was the racing version of the CLA, and again my first day impressions remained. It looks stunning, and seems a good entry-level car for doing some track-day fun with an expected intern CLA championship, although I regret that Mercedes will only keep the standard turbocharged 4-cylinder engine instead of putting a bigger engine. I really hope that I will get the opportunity to drive one of these cars soon to see if it’s really worth it.
The SL-Class Coupe still looked as enormous as ever, and with all the safety features the Stuttgart-based brand is going to fit in, I cannot see how this will behave sportively. I can only assume that Mercedes wants to try bringing Rolls-Royce Wraith’s and their usual E-class coupe customers to buying one of these. It won’t be very difficult to convince their E-class coupe customers, because the S-Class will be better trimmed, better equipped, more comfortable, and more powerful but more expensive as well. Although I doubt any of the Wraith’s potential customers will dare having a look at the S-Class Coupe, as the Wraith will be even more comfortable, better soundproofed and especially way more exclusive than the Mercedes.
Outside Mercedes giant hall we took a pause to have a look at Mercedes-Benz’s GT3-class victorious racing SLS AMG, which was still very dirty from its last racing session, but that had its own charm.
Getting back to Volkwagen’s group main hall, we went to Bentley, trying to spot the differences between the standard Continental GT V8 and the S version, which gain 50 more horsepower, for a total output of 550 horsepower, both for the coupe and the convertible. We couldn’t find any, apart from the front carbon fibre splitter, so I started to wonder why would anyone order the more expensive standard Continental GT with the 560 horsepower (only 10 more than the V8 S) W12 engine. The V8 model sounds better, is more efficient, and offers the same feature than the W12, so I couldn’t really find any reasons why anyone would choose the W12. If people really want a 12 cylinder engine on their continental GT, then they should get the more powerful GT Speed version, a bit more expensive, but more exclusive too.
Crewe’s brand had also brought two Flying Spur, which I had already seen in Geneva a few months earlier. Way cheaper than the Mulsanne, the Flying Spur is the cheapest way to run a big flying B car, but Bentley is still not considering to fit in the V8 probably because it wouldn’t have enough torque to deal with the massive weight of the car. I don’t really understand as well why isn’t Bentley proposing an extra long wheelbase version of the Mulsanne or the Flying Spur to boost sales in China, where customers are very fond of big rear legroom.
