New Mercedes BLS leaks

Mercedes BLS - Leaked image from a Mercedes plant in Hungary

Photos have emerged of what appears to be the baby Mercedes CLS – the 2012/2013 Mercedes BLS – on a production line in Hungary.

There is no doubt that the 2011 Mercedes B-Class will arrive at Frankfurt next month. We’ve had a raft of details from Mercedes and even a set of interior photos of the new B-Class to tease its imminent arrival.

What we don’t know is just how extensive the debut at Frankfurt is going to be. Is it going to be just a peek at a bog-standard new B-Class, or are we going to get something more interesting – like the Mercedes BLS, perhaps?

We know that Mercedes has big plans for the new B-Class, including a variety of models from the standard hatch to an SUV to a coupe. And we think that Mercedes will market their baby CLS as the Mercedes BLS – the new B-Class as a four-door swoopy-coupe.

The photo above comes from BenzInsider, who managed to snatch the photo at a Mercedes plant in Hungary. It clearly shows a four-door coupe in production, but the size is smaller than then CLS.

Of course, Mercedes are perfectly capable of building a four-door coupe on the new B-Class underpinnings and calling it the CLC instead of the BLC. Why, you might ask? Because they could probably charge more for it than they could as a B-Class. Just as they’ve taken C-Class underpinnings and used them for the E-Class Coupe.

But whatever Mercedes choose to call this smaller CLS – BLS, CLC and CLA have all been mooted – there is a fair chance it may turn up at Frankfurt together with the more prosaic versions of the new B-Class.

Looks more than a little interesting