Mercedes-Benz Australia has introduced numerous changes to its flagship model, the large and luxurious CL-Class coupe. The biggest news is under the bonnet where the latest V8 ‘500’ engine now runs twin turbochargers.

Using a pair of smaller turbochargers reduces throttle response time, an important factor to those who love to drive. This engine is a completely new 4.7-litre unit producing 320 kilowatts. We won’t get bogged down in numbers here, suffice to say the engine provides more power and torque to give significantly harder acceleration (zero to 100 km/h in only 4.9 seconds) yet uses less fuel and puts out a lot fewer emissions than the superseded unit.

Fuel consumption is probably not a real consideration to the person paying close to $400,000 to put a Mercedes-Benz on the road, but any owner with a social conscience will appreciate that this Mercedes V8 engine produces only 259 grams of CO2 when measured to the Australian driving cycle.

The appearance of the CL-Class has been altered significantly and takes a similar theme to other new Mercedes models. This is based to some extent on the Gullwing front end and results in the CL500 having a sportier look, though obviously the emphasis is still on class rather than muscle.

The styling changes not only include bolder front grilles and reshaped headlights and bumper, but also add some chrome strips, including chrome around the newly shaped daytime running lights. It’s good to see the return of chrome to upmarket cars. Used carefully this bright metal adds class to any car.

Inside, the new CL class is all class. Quality leather with special stitching abounds and there are several choices of wood. The latter is chosen from sustainable sources and much of the work is hand done by craftsmen.

Features added to the latest Merc CL include the active headlight system we recently previewed in the all-new CLS. This not only swivels the headlights in corners, but also moves them up and down according to sensors that look for other vehicles’ lights. Thus the Mercedes driver has maximum use of their lights whilst minimising inconvenience to other road users.

So numerous are the driver assist features on the latest CL that Mercedes describes the car as being a “thinking partner” to the driver. For example the CL senses if it is wandering over lane lines and gives a discreet shaking of the steering wheel to draw the driver’s attention to the problem. If the driver still doesn’t pay attention the car will pull itself back into line. However, during testing we carried out on secondary back roads in the Victorian countryside this system didn’t always work. Probably because of the badly worn lines on the road.

There’s also a so-called blind spot assist system for drivers who don’t adjust their door mirrors correctly. This shows an orange warning triangle in the mirrors when vehicles are close behind and to the side, this changes to red if the driver signals they are lane changing in a potentially dangerous situation.

The Night View assist places an electronic image of the road ahead in front of the driver that can give the driver advance warning of what’s in front. In the latest version of Night View, pedestrians are highlighted on the display the moment they are spotted by a special infrared camera.

Attention Assist is used to spot drowsy drivers and give them a warning that they need to take a break. Sleepy people are common on Australian roads due to the long distances we travel and often unreasonably strict policing of low speed limits. The new CL-Class watches the driver in up to 70 different ways to looks for signs of weariness. One of the most common ways of spotting this is to monitor movements of the steering wheel; research has shown that frequent small movements of the steering wheel followed by a big jerk on the wheel to correct previous mistakes is a good indicator the driver has dozed off.

Mercedes-Benz’s latest CL-Class is an amazingly competent grand touring coupe that offers cocooning luxury for its occupants, yet at the same time provides far more driving pleasure than would be thought possible.

The complete Mercedes-Benz CL-Class range, with prices (excluding government and dealer charges) is:
CL 500 4.7-litre bi-turbo petrol two-door coupe: $337,000
CL 600 5.5-litre bi-turbo petrol two-door coupe: $425,600
CL 63 AMG 5.5-litre bi-turbo petrol two-door coupe: $423,300
CL 63 AMG 6.0-litre bi-turbo petrol two-door coupe: $519,250