2009 Mercedes-Benz CLC: What could have been

The one who got away. Unicorn, whatever you’d like to call it. It’s the road not taken, the alternative that might have been. With Mercedes-Benz CLC, Daimler chose the safer route, the one with less controversy, less to talk about.

As seen in these initial sketches, a great deal of Chris Bangle's "flame surfacing" went into some of these; long sharp lines and kinks. More than this, SLR seems to have played a major role as well for inspiration, as some of the rears show in the drawings.

Riding on the same architecture as previous-generation C Coupe, the CLC is pretty new. However, it appears to be more conservative than the C-Class which, especially in AMG kit, looks wicked enough to scare off that wretched witch of the west herself. Perhaps an AMG version might break that shell?