New Mercedes GLE Coupe Spotted With Its Unusual Shape At The ‘Ring

There's no escaping from the coupe-SUV madness as more and more of these unusually shaped vehicles are invading the streets that were once ruled by sedans, hatchbacks, and wagons. Mercedes was fashionably late to the party as the first GLE Coupe came out years after the BMW X6, but as the saying goes, better late than never. A completely new version of the swoopy midsize luxury SUV is getting ready to break cover, and this camouflaged prototype was likely undergoing final testing.

Spotted at the Nürburgring, the revamped GLE Coupe had to share the Green Hell with one of its main rivals – the aforementioned X6. The competition in this segment is heating up as Porsche now has the Cayenne Coupe, Land Rover the Range Rover Velar, while Audi is selling the Q8. Mercedes needs to thoroughly improve its product to have a better shot at luring customers that would otherwise go for the X6, which single-handedly invented this segment more than a decade ago. BMW's offering is also all-new for 2020, so people shopping in this segment have to do some serious thinking before signing on the dotted line for one of these automotive oddities.

Despite the full camouflage, we have a feeling the new GLE Coupe will look considerably sleeker compared to the outgoing model. Of course, an SUV beaten with the coupe stick is not going to claim the title for the world's most beautiful car, but an improvement over its predecessor is good news to us. Having seen the regular GLE and how its interior has dramatically changed as it switched to the latest generation, it will be a similar story with the "coupe" version by adopting the high-tech dashboard with dual screens.

Just about everything you can think of will be sourced from the standard GLE, including a GLE 580 Coupe derivative with a mild-hybrid V8 engine that was introduced earlier this year for the traditional variant of the large SUV. That one will sit on top of the Mercedes-Benz GLE Coupe range, with the AMG 63 to serve as the icing on the cake.

We probably won't have to wait much longer for the camouflage to come off as we're expecting an official debut in the months to come.