Achtung! Mercedes Ready to Launch E-Class Cabrio

• Mercedes preps us for 2011 E-Class Cabriolet launch
• Softtop, not hardtop, more aggressively styled than milky CLK forebear
• E-Class cabrio’s power options on E350 and E550 (E500 in EU) potent but relatively mild

By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG Daimler, AG

BY every measure the 2011 Mercedes-Benz E-Class cabriolet stands as a more substantial 2+2 boulevardier than its predecessor, the silky soft CLK.

Mercedes traditionally positioned the E-Class (or CLK) convertibles for a more feminine buyer but this latest iteration seems to have struck a better balance. Unlike the original W124 E-Class but like its more immediate predecessors, the E-Class cabriolet will be based on C-Class underpinnings.

Ever since the time 60s, MB designers have taken the harder edges of an E-Class sedan and rounded them ever so slightly to appeal to our softer, inner hedonists. The point was to not worry about performance or the expectation thereof (the 90s E320 cabriolet was a casual performer at best) and to just sit back and enjoy the wind in your hair.

Or not. Mercedes like BMW and the rest have previously deployed rear seat wind-deflectors to help curb back draft; the sticking point being that you ceded use of the back seats.

In the 2011 E-Class cabrio, Mercedes looks to have mitigated this somewhat by taking notes from the Volkswagen EOS and implementing their own “AirCap system” – a 2.4 inch wind screen that pops up from the top of the windshield when the roof is lowered to reduce those ill winds that give ladies “convertible hair”.

In cooler months, Mercedes AirScarf system – first deployed on the SLK and then, messily, on the SL (think ET headrests) – which will pump warm air to the driver and front passengers necks.

Rear passengers get to freeze, sorry.

But back to what makes the 2011 cabrio a more distinctive ride than the 2010.

The amoeba headlamps and soft curves of the predecessor CLK model were pretty and pretty generic. That car’s best angle was from the rear 3/4 perspective, which also gave you the impression that what you’re looking at was most any Euro-designed droptop – Is it a Peugeot? Audi? Zil?

The latest model which will bow in Detroit next month keeps the angular facia and hood creases from the E-Class sedan and then carries all that pent-up surface tension rearward along the side panels. There’s even an S-Class-ish rear wheel-well arch that rises from the rockers flows up over the wheel and then shoots aft in a straightline to the rectangular tail lights.

The cabrio’s new essence is aggressive: for the softop appears to be in forward motion even when stationary. Speaking of aggressive, the engine options are actualy fairly mild in contrast to the super-tuned behemoth V8s and V12s that we’ve come to expect.

The E350 cab will feature a 3.5 liter V6 channeling a respectable 268 horsepower with 258 lb-ft of torque, while the E550 cab’s 5.5 liter V8 keeps the horses relatively reined in @ 382 hp and 391 lb-ft, respectively. If this were the year 2000, the V8’s figures would’ve represented serious, AMG grade power.

But in a twin-turbo, 600 horsepower world, we’ve become jaded. Which is how buyers of  Benz’s latest cabrio are sure to feel.