New Mercedes E-Class Cabriolet and Estate delayed

Most of the Mercedes news recently has centred on the new E-Class Mercedes, both as a saloon and a coupe. Sure, we’ve had various bits and pieces about the Mercedes AMG SLS, and some upgrades to the Mercedes S Class (including the S400 Hybrid), but most of the information flowing has centred around the new Mercedes E-Class saloon and, more recently, the new Mercedes E-Class Coupe.

Mercedes has done a pretty good job on updating the E-Class, and its been receiving good comments all round. But Mercedes has lost the momentum a bit with the revelation that the E-Class Coupe is actually based on a C-Class chassis. Not that that alone is reason for complaint, but there was a big hoo-haa around the nomenclature for the E-Class Coupe (should it have been the CLK?) so it was a bit disingenuous of Mercedes to reveal the Coupe’s roots after its reveal.

But it now seems that Mercedes has issues with the rest of the E-Class Range. The E-Class Cabriolet was originally scheduled to show at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September, but the news now is that Mercedes has pushed that back to Geneva in March. Not only that, but the new Mercedes E-Class Estate, which we believe to be more ‘Avant’ than ‘Estate’, is actually not going to appear until 2011.

We don’t think that its because Mercedes are trying to base the new Cabriolet on the A-Class platform and failing (joke!!), rather that the three-pointed Star is feeling the pinch just like the rest, and looking to see some revenue coming in off the back of the new E-Class before they spew the rest of the variants out in to the marketplace.

But logically, the Spring of 2010 is probably a much better time to launch a Cabriolet than the end of the Summer, and the Estate is a much lower volume than the Coupe or Saloon, so sensible to leave it until last.

And there is also a faint hope that the economy might improve a tad in the meantime.