Mercedes-Benz SLC AMG spy shots

The big banger of the Benz family is soon to get a baby brother. The AMG hothouse outside Stuttgart is beavering on a compact performance coupe that will take the fight up to the Porsche 911 in coming years.

And here it is - draped in black camo clothing but still clearly something special.

The new car is called the SLC and it's not a throwback to the similarly-badged lardy S-Class coupe of the late 1970s, but a condensation of the current hero car called the SLS.

It uses the basic SLS chassis with a shorter and lighter hatchback two-seater body and no sign of the Gullwing doors which are the trademark of the SLS coupe that sells from $468,320 in Australia.

These Carparazzi pictures show work on the SLC is well advanced, but it is not expected to go official until the second half of next year, most likely as the three-pointed star's spotlight car at the 2014 Paris motor show.

There has been talk of the SLC almost from the day the SLS was unveiled, as AMG was positioned as a genuine carmaker - and not just a tuning shop - by Mercedes-Benz.

The SLC project was always planned as a way to offset the heavy spending on the SLS, which is now built as both a coupe and roadster but still a $500,000-plus proposition for most owners once they have dipped into the AMG optional equipment.

The SLC is more aggressive than the Benz's mainstream SL droptop but not as extreme as the the Gullwing, which means it's expected to pick up the basic mechanical package from the SL instead of a downsized deal from the SLS.

That means a twin-turbo 4-litre V8 tuned for more than 365 kiloWatts, sitting in the nose and turning the rear wheels but with a conventional automatic and not the costly and complicated transaxle used in the SLS.

The SLC is the obvious target for a Black Series model at some time in 2015 or beyond, although even company insiders in Germany refuse to discuss rumours of a carbon fibre-lashed lightweight road rocket.

Instead, speculation is currently focussed on the test and development work which is based around AMG's headquarters at Affalterbach and the Nurburging in Germany, as well as the car's likely rivals.

European sources hint at a pricetag set around 100,000 Euros, which would mean somewhere in the $200,000 range in Australia and a position above Porsche's Cayman but below the 911.

This reporter is on Twitter: @paulwardgover