"The Germans try thinking like Italians.
BY AARON ROBINSON
December 2004

Strength, durability, rationality. After more than a century of building cars guided by such forthright German principles, Mercedes-Benz has lately become enamored with another, slightly more Italian idea: loveliness.

Not to imply that Gottlieb D.'s boys haven't built a few lookers through the years—the 1955 300SL Gullwing, for example. But when the head office has asked for four doors, the designers have usually answered with flat sides, large trunks, spacious back seats, and workman-like cockpits. German convention holds that cars should be practical and a Mercedes even more so. With the CLS, Mercedes tells German convention to shove it.

Painted silver, the CLS shimmers like a puddle of mercury caught in a wind gust. Huge wheels and razor slashes of side glass put the exclamation point on the fulsome whoosh of bodywork. French-stitched leather is everywhere, and burled wood spills off the dash and pools around the shifter. Fine beads of chrome finish off many of the seams. The CLS is gorgeous.

The two adjoined bucket seats in the back are also tighter than the bench in the shorter E-class. Passengers can feel shut in behind the high doorsills and low-flying arched roof. With a drag coefficient of 0.31, the shape is clean, but it won't set aerodynamic records, thanks partly to the elegantly tapered tail (big butts are actually better for airflow—and trunk space).[Via caranddriver.com]

Click link above for more info.