Yes. Unfortunately the high end luxury 2-seater convertible is a dying breed.
The CLE cab works because it's (relatively) affordable, is a bit sporty and crucially, it has 4 seats.
But at the SL's price bracket it needs to be a sports car. In fact any 2 seater car these days MUST be a sports car. And the R129 onwards were everything but sporty.
I suspect they would have canned the SL entirely and just had the GT + a roadster variant, but the SL is an iconic name place for Mercedes. So they brought it back to the original 300SL's mission of being a state of the art sports car and then gave it back seats to try and broaden the appeal. Unfortunately its not very licht, but seems to be a decent car overall.
I guess this is why the S coupe/cab got dropped too, though I think the S coupe line would still do better than a soft riding 2-seater SL.
The problem of the CLE is it’s cheap interior, it’s cheaper than the E and even C convertible.
Interior space is on par with the E convertible.
I should get a CLE450 for a couple of days in the next weeks,I am really curious how well it drives.
On that point that a 2 seater must be sporty I disagree, the Continental GTC is almost a 2 seater, and it’s very comfy and successful.
They did a 911 competitor instead of a Continental GTC competitor, my main concern is, that there are no non AMG versions.
A SL450 and SL580 with softer (E-ABC) suspension could be fantastic additions to the line up.
The reason why it’s not light, is cost cutting, the R231 had a ASF (aluminum space frame), that made that car surprisingly light. This was again a mistake, producing the GT and the SL without a aluminum body.
The 217 lineup was simply to cramped compared to the 238, the difference in the interior space was to small.
Here in Europe there were no cars at the dealerships.
People didn’t know that these cars exist.
The main difference (apart from the engines and the more luxurious interior) has been the drive.
I agree a new generation of S coupe and convertibles would do better than a softer SL.
