Running preproduction prototypes of your new car at the Nürburgring has become as de rigeur for auto manufacturers as putting an engine under the hood and a patch of rubber at each corner. This practice is certainly making it easy for our spy photographers, who can pretty much set up camp and wait for the cars to come to them.
Most recently, our shooters captured a pair of Mercedes-Benz prototypes working out at the famous Eifel Mountain racetrack, the SL65 AMG Black Series and this 2010 E-class.
Though the matte-black shrink wrap hides the details of the head and taillights, it does little to mask the crisp new body lines. Certainly not the katana-hewn angles of a Cadillac design, the C-class–inspired cuts on the 2010 E-class’s sheetmetal are nonetheless razor sharp compared to the stately and curvaceous shaping of the model it replaces.
Taut creases in the side metal may be a relatively dramatic change, but the overall character of Mercedes’s mid-size sedan will remain unchanged. Expansive glass still fills an upright greenhouse, and even the car’s size will change very little. The platform underpinning the car seen here is an evolution of the previous-generation car’s, so expect dimensions to ebb and grow by mere fractions in any direction.
Our sources tell us there will also be little change in the engine room, where the V-6 diesel in the E320 BlueTec and the V-8 in the E550 will receive only minor updates. E350 models will see an additional 32 horsepower arrive courtesy of the direct-injection V-6 from the 2009 SLK350. We can only hope the bawdy E63 AMG sees even more than its current 507 horsepower, but if it doesn’t, we’ll still love it.
Expect the rest of the wrapping to stay on the E-class until the Geneva auto show in March of 2009. The car will start to appear in American showrooms the following fall, with the AMG to drop sometime in 2010.
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