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Mercedes Considering Roofless GLC to Battle Evoque Convertible?

Believe it or not, there are no renderings of a Mercedes convertible SUV, at least not ones that aren't related to the G-Class. But even though nobody had the idea of doing Evoque Cabrio+GLC Coupe, the Benz people are considering doing the unthinkable.
Range Rover Evoque Convertible 1 photo
Photo: Land Rover
Merc's chief engineer for the GLC, CLS and E-Class told Autocar that he is a fan of the Evoque Convertible. Frankly, we expected to hear that from a designer, not a guy who's all about the nuts and bolts. But Herr Kelz may know something we don't, because he sees a rise in popularity for drop-top SUVs.

“It would be fun, and it’s actually not that much of an engineering challenge,
” he said.

If it's so easy, why hasn't everybody done it already? It could be because there wasn't any profit to be made. But we've always had huge misgivings about the future of the convertible SUV, especially after watching the Macan fail the moose test and seeing what happens to something like a Golf Cabrio in the event of a rollover.

Even the brand new Evoque Convertible that Kelz likes so much is a little piglet of a car that weighs nearly 2 tons has noticeably stiffer suspension and can take 10 seconds to reach 100 km/h.

But perhaps Mercedes wants to get to the party before there's even a party and eat all the cake icing. The ML-Class could have had a coupe version before the X6 came out but it was not approved in time. A convertible would put Daimler ahead of BMW since both companies now have two coupe 4x4s a piece.

Just because one senior member of a company wants to rival the Range Rover Evoque Cabriolet doesn't mean a thing. However, that's still one senior member more than in 2015. Maybe even Dieter Zetsche will like the idea by 2017. Hopefully, we'll have a rendering by then!
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About the author: Mihnea Radu
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Mihnea's favorite cars have already been built, the so-called modern classics from the '80s and '90s. He also loves local car culture from all over the world, so don't be surprised to see him getting excited about weird Japanese imports, low-rider VWs out of Germany, replicas from Russia or LS swaps down in Florida.
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