The power-war was on, and Mercedes-Benz didn't want to lose it in front of its traditional competitor, the BMW M3 convertible.

Mercedes-Benz introduced the second generation of the CLK at the 2002 Geneva Motor Show and, a year later, Mercedes-Benz brought the full performance version.

After introducing the CLK range, Mercedes-Benz brought the open-top version for it together with an AMG-tuned version in 1999: the CLK 55.