Mercedes-Benz C-Class Coupe 2016 Review

Mercedes-Benz C-Class Coupe
Australian Launch Review
Yarra Valley, Victoria

The new Mercedes-Benz C-Class Coupe has arrived in Australia in C 200, C 250d and C 300 forms, with the bahnstorming new C 63S Coupe due to land in showrooms next week. Priced from $65,900, the latest C-Class Coupe offers a more focussed driving experience than its sedan equivalents, while unique sheet metal presents a more stylish silhouette.

A coupe is not especially practical and nor should it be. It’s a car that’s for you, and just you, to enjoy without the need for boring stuff such as enough seats for a soccer team or a load area big enough to lug a cement mixer.

The new C-Class Coupe says it’s all about me, with a small con-cession for others to ride along via its 2+2-seat configuration. It's a very small concession — literally — but more on that later.

What can be said about current Mercedes-Benz design language? The C-Class Coupe has a fluent, distinctive style — unlike the C-Class sedan, whose design language is incomprehensible at the melted plastic-look rear. It’s probably not called that in the Mercedes design studio.

For Australia, the Coupe comes standard with the AMG Pack comprising deeper front and rear bumpers that serve to distinguish the coupe further from the sedan. The new C-Coupe also scores Benz's big diamond grille, which again makes for a better looking machine.

The two-door C-Class was easy to slide in and out of through the long, wide-opening doors. To the uninitiated, the cockpit is not scattered with controls like an aircraft’s bewildering array, but it takes a while to work yourself into the Mercedes-Benz way of do-ing things.

The electric park brake is activated by a switch down on the right side of the dash, where Benz has plonked its handbrake in every generation going back to the Ark, while the column-mounted wand gear selector is a relatively new thing as seen in most newer Mercedes models.

Some love it, others are less enamoured with it, but at least the Coupe has excellent steering wheel paddle shifters if you want to control gear changes yourself. The rest of the controls on the steering wheel, centre stack and console are not difficult to use after you’ve had a play with them.

We sampled the Coupe during a downpour in Victoria’s Yarra Ranges, which didn’t help us get to know this sports coupe as well as we would have liked.

The C 200 kicks off the range but doesn’t look like a poverty-pack model with its AMG 18-inch wheels and body kit. Inside, the Artico seats do a good job of looking and feeling like leather, and the fronts, like the C 200 and C 300’s, have good side support.

The rear seats in the Coupes are not meant for normal-sized adults to sit for very long. This writer -- with a 170cm height, leaning towards jockey rather than basketballer height -- had his bald patch neatly pressed against the roof. Getting in and out of the back -- like quite a few coupes -- was not a quick and easy exercise either.

The 135kW 2.0-litre engine punches the C 200 Coupe along well, but it’s no sports car engine. It begins to sound coarse as the engine spins past 4000rpm but thankfully the excellent seven-speed auto comes to your aid by quickly slotting into the next gear before redline.

The steel spring suspension -- the Coupe sits 15mm lower than the sedan -- seems fussy and unsettled when cruising in urban areas but improves as it gets to work, smoothing out the rough bits on fast, patchy bitumen.

The steering – as in the C 250d and C 300 we sampled -- is slow to turn in and doesn’t have anything like a sports car feel to it. It’s like the steering rack is high-geared to make the steering less nervous for high-speed Autobahn work.

That's not so relevant here, or in fact in parts of Germany’s Autobahn network anymore, with its heavy traffic and innumerable road works. Steering gets more weight when you select Sport drive modes, but that doesn’t really fix the problem.

The C 250d engine is a cracker. Only a muted, faraway diesel clatter announces its compression-ignition status, and once the tacho begins its climb beyond idle, the absence of stultifying turbo lag is a pleasant surprise.

When you begin to explore the diesel’s mid-range for an overtake, you’re swept up in a wave of torque. It’s impressive, as is the tacho’s fast sweep to the 5000rpm redline.

This engine’s willingness to spin up past peak torque and power -- without feeling as if you’ve put the brakes on -- is very undiesel-like. While many buyers in this category prefer petrol, this engine would sway buyers towards distillate more than most.

The 9G-TRONIC auto really helped the diesel shine. It changed gears quickly and smoothly enough when trundling along but when the accelerator was given a big shove it shifted though its abundant ratios almost as quickly as a good dual-clutch auto.

The nine-speed ‘box dropped the engine into its sweet mid-range with every upshift -- with nine ratios, it would’ve been hard for Benz to get this wrong -- and so the Coupe’s full-throttle acceleration was unrelenting.

The C 250d we drove had the $2300 optional AIRMATIC Dyna-mic Handling Package, which replaces the steel coil springs with air springs. The net effect was a firm yet supple, well controlled ride and -- within the limits we could explore in a downpour -- a composed and flat cornering attitude.

Selecting the Sport or Sport+ modes firmed the suspension too much for our rough roads, and so here the Comfort mode would be the pick. In the selectable drive modes, one called Individual allows you to pick the Comfort settings for dampers while picking up the Sport mode for engine and steering.

The C 300 is the top of the Coupe range here -- if you exclude the AMG C 63 S, which is twice the price of the C 300. If you don’t do diesel, but want a bit more go and luxury than the C 200 offers, you’re looking at an almost $20K spend it get into the C 300.

The C 300’s turbo 2.0-litre is a worked over version of the C 200’s, and what a transformation the changes make. The extra 45kW and 70Nm is a big part of what makes the C 300 more athletic than the C 200, but it’s also how it delivers its whack of pow-er and torque.

There is a nice, unobtrusive induction noise as the 2.0-litre digs deep under load and, as it sling-shots forward and the engine reaches for its 6200rpm peak, it emits a frenetic wail. It's all quite satisfying and ticks off the under-bonnet requirements of a more sports-oriented coupe.

The auto is down two ratios on the diesel but it did not want for them. The shifts were quick and decisive and there was no sense that you have missed a gear after an upshift; the ratios were well matched.

The C 300 had the AIRMATIC suspension option fitted as well, and, as with the C 250d we sampled, in Comfort mode it made for a supple, contained ride -- although sharp bumps were met with a thump sound through the toe-board. As far as we could tell in the wash-out conditions, the chassis has the makings of a well-balanced point-to-point tourer.

The new C-Class Coupe could do with more responsive steering and the price difference between the petrol models is steep if you don’t want diesel. Yet the Coupe is only $5K pricier than the equivalent C-Class sedan model and brings a more distinguished look and, to a degree, better dynamics.

2016 Mercedes-Benz C 300 pricing and specifications:
Price: $83,400 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbo-petrol
Output: 180kW/370Nm
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Fuel: 6.6L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 154g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety rating: Five-star ANCAP

Also consider:
>> Audi A5 Coupe (from $68,200)
>> BMW 4 Series Coupe (from $70,000)
>> Lexus RC Coupe (from $65,610)