With the fear of dwindling energy supplies and the race to make our vehicles cleaner, there are some things that are seemingly disappearing from the automotive landscape. There are still a few holdouts in the market, but the manual transmission has been disappearing even in exotic sports cars such as Lamborghini and Porsche as faster, more economical automated manuals and automatic gearboxes have emerged. Engines with more than eight cylinders seem to be a dying breed and small vehicles seem to be rather popular, even in a country like the US where bigger is often better. What then, to make of this Mercedes-Benz CL600 in an era of rightsizing? Even though it isn’t terribly vintage, this large coupe powered by six liters and twelve cylinders seems an anachronism in today’s motoring world.
