Mercedes-Benz C-Class Coupe 2011 Review - International

Mercedes-Benz C-Class Coupe

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There's something in the water at Mercedes-Benz, and it's taken 125 years to get there. After decades of producing cars that favoured ride quality over handling, it looked as though the Stuttgart concern had genuinely lost its ability to build a car that was fun to drive.

And now there's the C-Class Coupe. This should have been -- could easily have been -- yet another variant on the C-Class: full of competence but light on for genuine driving entertainment. But it isn't.

Indeed the new two-door C is easily the most entertaining drive among all the cars that wear a three-pointed star... Well, until you arrive at the SLS.

The ride quality hasn't been hurt in the transition from adequacy to brilliance, and brilliance is what it is. This car, with either the diesel or petrol four pots, is one of the best-handling cars you can buy today (or, tomorrow, actually). In fact, this car is a better 3 Series than anything BMW can sell you right now. It's that simple.

In a supreme piece of fortune for the budget conscious, the frugal C 250 CDI version also happens to be easily the best of the breed.

With less weight lumped over the front axle than the obvious favourite, the C 350, the four-cylinder, twin-turbo diesel is a startling revelation that opens a window into a world at Mercedes-Benz nobody knew even existed.

It is, very simply, one supremely integrated bundle of fun. Think of it as an MX-5 for grown-ups and you won't be far away from where the C 250 CDI sits in the overall motoring world.

The four-cylinder, never the smoothest small diesel in the world, feels more at home when its natural harmonics have been harnessed for a rortier character. And its enormous spread of torque means it's ready to punch anywhere, anytime.

The oiler four has 500Nm of torque, delivered in a flat line from 1600rpm. This stomp makes the relatively paltry 150kW at 4200 feel more than adequate.

With twin turbos huffing away to force feed it, it gets away to 100km/h in 7.0sec (1sec than the C 350 but quicker than the petrol-powered C 250 four). Yet it sips fuel at only 4.9L/100km according to official figures.

The beauty of this is you can take the diesel C-Class Coupe further between stops, so you can enjoy it more, because it's not the kind of car you ever want to stop driving.

Normally, Benzes seem geared around how the driver is going to feel when he/she emerges at the other end of the drive. With this one, the Benz crew has focussed on how he/she will feel while actually in it. It's a huge philosophical shift.

It takes only two corners before the cynicism falls away in response to the Coupe's overwhelmingly cheerful nature. On Spain's southern hills, it pricks its ears up and begs you to throw it at corners where both lesser and far more expensive Benz models give you their best under sufferance.

The first time you throw the thing into a tight corner, the Coupe responds by snapping its nose and punching out the other side. Find a fast corner and the car's steering and balance give the driver stupendous levels of confidence in what it's doing. The steering, in particular, lets you ease the nose into corners at ever-faster speeds because it's forever communicating even the most subtle nuances from the contact patch to your fingertips.

Adjusting it on throttle mid-corner reveals even more talent, with the rear end squatting deep into the asphalt and the front end, though it's busy telling you every trace of gossip from the road, still finds the talent to tuck in towards the apex.

It's simply superb on a series of fast, winding corners, because it's got one of the best, most-predictable direction changes in the business.

All the while, too, the diesel engine proves its worthiness, because there's enough torque to make a difference when you're adjusting things mid-corner and there's always enough left to pull it out the other side again. And, with the steering wheel-mounted shift paddles giving a direct link to the seven-speed automatic transmission, it's a doddle to flick into a higher gear to keep it in the richest part of its torque curve.

A flick through the car's engineering notes doesn't reveal anything much, except for allusions to something called Agility Control, which brings in amplitude-dependent adaptive dampers and a new steering system. The damping system runs soft when it the wheel moves short distances, but stiffens instantly on larger movements of the damper shaft.

The Coupe's roof is also 41mm lower than the sedan which all helps.

You get a better hint when you prick the pride of the engineers by asking the project leaders whether they'd just discovered the secrets to good handling or they knew them all along, but refused to implement them. It's sportier, they say, so they can make compromises in ride that aren't acceptable elsewhere in the range. Thus the C-Class sedan will never feel like this and more's the pity. (And this response doesn't even come close to explaining why the new SLK feels so ordinary.)

"The four-cylinder has more torque and is lighter over the front [end] than the V6 and that's why it's more agile," C-Coupe Project Leader, Thomas Ruhl, confirmed.

"The concept it's based on is identical to the sedan and the sports steering and suspension make the difference. Technically, we could do it with the sedan, too, but we want to have a difference to the sedan so we will not do it."

Inside, it's more C-Class, as you'd expect. There are integral headrests in the two rear seats and they're easy to get into, with the front seats sliding forward a long, long way. At 273mm, it's the longest fore-and-aft adjustment in the class.

The C Coupe also has more rear head, shoulder and elbow room than a 3 Series Coupe, says Mercedes, but some of its dimensions are slightly below what you get in an Audi A5.

It's not all good news, though, because even in its dotage, the current 3 Series Coupe is a far better proportioned two-door than the brand-new little C-Class.

Hampered by its higher grille line, the Benz looks very hefty at the trailing edge of the bonnet and there's a lot of metal above the rear wheel before it even reaches the glasshouse, which Benz has tried to disguise with an enormous crease line.

But that's about it. If you can live with the styling, buy it...

The diesel's not faster in a straight line, though, because the 225kW, 3.5-litre petrol six still delivers its performance in a wonderfully linear way and charges to 100km/h in six seconds flat. Where it falls away is that the extra weight of the V6 (even compared to a four-cylinder diesel toting two turbochargers) hampers the handling enough to rob the Coupe of its last 10 per cent of nuance, detail and excitement.

It's ultimately almost as good and doesn't lose much, but it takes a lot more time to gather confidence in its front-end because it talks less and hides some important details.

Some people will prefer it anyway, largely because it's the strongest petrol engine available, but it's not even the best petrol-engined Coupe. That award goes to the less-powerful C 250. Packing 150kW and 300Nm, it's a worthwhile 65kg lighter and far more agile.

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