This year will be an important one for the three-pointed star for a couple of reasons. Firstly, its flagship will receive its mid-cycle facelift, and secondly, its AMG subsidiary is celebrating 50 years of existence.
Coincidentally - or not - both these reasons are somewhat related to the two spy videos we're presenting today, where a couple of lightly camouflaged S-Class Coupes are hiding a lot more than they seem.
Judging strictly by the footage, you'd expect the taillights to be the only things different about the 2019 models, but you'd be wrong. Kind of.
Just like its four-door brother, the facelifted S-Class Coupe will keep most of its exterior design motifs unchanged, with just a couple of nips and tucks concerning the headlights and taillights and a slight redesign of the bumpers. The interior will also get a redesigned steering wheel and center console touchpad, while the two gigantic screens on the dashboard will fuse into a single, even larger, one.
That said, the real differences will be found under that long hood, where every single engine apart from the 6.0-liter V12 will be brand new.
Europe's S400 Coupe will cease to be motivated by a twin-turbocharged V6 but a turbocharged inline-six with mild-hybrid technology, which will put a new 48-Volt electric system to good use regarding both power and fuel economy.
The S500 Coupe (S550 Coupe in the U.S.) will replace its twin-turbocharged 4.7-liter V8 with a detuned version of the M176 4.0-liter developed by Mercedes-AMG. Expect it to offer around 470 hp in this spec, since the higher-powered version with over 600 hp will be reserved for the facelifted Mercedes-AMG S63 Coupe.
In other words, the S65 Coupe will be the only engine version carried over from the non-facelift model, with an S600 Coupe variant still not being on the cards. RHD markets will still get the RWD-only S-Class, while the others may be treated to an improved version of the 4Matic all-wheel-drive system.
The refreshed S-Class Coupe is expected to bow down at the 2018 Geneva Motor Show, or less than a year after the facelifted S-Class sedan is introduced.
Alex handled his first real steering wheel at the age of five (on a field) and started practicing "Scandinavian Flicks" at 14 (on non-public gravel roads). Following his time at the University of Journalism, he landed his first real job at the local franchise of Top Gear magazine a few years before Mircea (Panait). Not long after, Alex entered the New Media realm with the autoevolution.com project. Full profile
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