The niches consisting of “high-powered and luxurious four-door coupes” was pretty much invented by the gorgeous Mercedes-Benz CLS C219 back in 2004.
Penned by Michael Fink, the swooping design of the CLS was like nothing ever before in the Mercedes-Benz range, and its major success has prompted the arch enemies of the Stuttgart brand to develop rivals of their own.
First came Audi, who decided to make a spinoff for the “four door coupe” design, therefore creating the Audi A7 hatchback. BMW didn't took long and introduced a four-door version of the 6-Series called the Gran Coupe last year, even though technically the 5-Series was already a four-door base model for the 6-Series Coupe.
Meanwhile, the Mercedes-Benz CLS is now already at its second generation, with the C218, while its two main rivals are each starting to make a name of their own.
Each of the three has an even sportier version as a flagship model, and, coincidentally, all three are very similar in terms of power and performance characteristics, even though the S-Model version of the CLS 63 AMG is pretty much the grand daddy when it comes to power, torque and its official 3.6 seconds time required from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph).
Americans from Car & Driver recently had a go in each of those versions, pitting the CLS 63 AMG S-Model against the BMW M6 Gran Coupe and the Audi RS7. While we don't necessarily agree with the top made by them, the comparison test is well worth the read.
First came Audi, who decided to make a spinoff for the “four door coupe” design, therefore creating the Audi A7 hatchback. BMW didn't took long and introduced a four-door version of the 6-Series called the Gran Coupe last year, even though technically the 5-Series was already a four-door base model for the 6-Series Coupe.
Meanwhile, the Mercedes-Benz CLS is now already at its second generation, with the C218, while its two main rivals are each starting to make a name of their own.
Each of the three has an even sportier version as a flagship model, and, coincidentally, all three are very similar in terms of power and performance characteristics, even though the S-Model version of the CLS 63 AMG is pretty much the grand daddy when it comes to power, torque and its official 3.6 seconds time required from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph).
Americans from Car & Driver recently had a go in each of those versions, pitting the CLS 63 AMG S-Model against the BMW M6 Gran Coupe and the Audi RS7. While we don't necessarily agree with the top made by them, the comparison test is well worth the read.