Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France - With its new C-class Sports Coup, Mercedes-Benz has neatly skirted the question that has plagued each of its new models since the '80s. "Is it better than a BMW?" is a query made moot by the fact that the new little Benz has no Bavarian competition. BMW stopped selling its 318ti hatchback in the United States in 1999, and the company won't bring the next generation to the Americas because of certain marketplace failings of the previous car. The original 318ti was supposed to appeal to a new set of BMW buyers--a little younger, a little less married, and a little less male. But the 318ti, with its easily modified four-cylinder engine and recidivist trailing-arm rear suspension, wound up speaking to the hardest core of BMW enthusiasts, who found in it the perfect car for track days. In other words, BMW made a car too real, too specialized, for status-conscious Bimmophytes to grasp fully, and, as a result, BMW sold only 21,377 of the cars from 1995 to 1999.
Mercedes-Benz, however, should have no problem selling its hatch--for reasons exactly opposite those that led BMW to pull the 318ti. The Sports Coup is not a great car, but it is an accessible one and has attributes that will, we predict, pull in a great many new members to the club. The demographic targets for the car are mostly new-to-the-brand single females in their mid-thirties. Mercedes accordingly has made its Sports Coup hip, flashy, and affordable in a deliberate attempt to downplay the marque's stodgy past. The result of all this is a car that parses the Mercedes-Benz myth, editing out unfashionable virtues such as sturdiness and timelessness while protecting the superficial stuff. Seldom has so small a car worn so large an emblem.
Inside, the materials are a mixture of the very expensive and the unforgivably cheap. Nevertheless, the underlying ergonomics are superb. Outward visibility, aided in the rear by a Honda CRX-like see-through plastic panel, is surprisingly good for a car with such a massive rear flank. Upward visibility is especially good if you opt for the panoramic sunroof, whose nearly cabin-length glass panel slides open along exterior roof rails. The all-glass roof adds another 44 pounds to the curb weight, though.
The only Sports Coup coming to the United States this summer will be the C230 Kompressor; its supercharged four-cylinder gives off 190 horsepower and 200 pound-feet of torque. This engine delivers commendable power around the dial, but it's a thin kind of power, lacking the mighty mid-range grunt of M-B's old straight six. The six-speed manual on the car we drove was correspondingly lightweight, as if the boys in Sindelfingen had struck some deal to take remaindered gearboxes off the hands of new corporate partner Mitsubishi. Ultimately, the chassis refinements and related technologies of the new C-class platform are what substantiate the Sports Coup. The ride and body are very well controlled--sober, even--although we wish the car weren't so prone to understeer. It takes some sport out of the equation.
With this complicated car, Mercedes seems like the rich burgher going through a devastating midlife crisis, shedding the wife, the kids, the dog, and every other bourgeois symbol of stability. His old life was an enviable one, a great one, but his invisibility to the opposite sex somehow ruined it for him. Now, his attempts to score have taken on a pathetic sort of fervor. The women he ensnares may find his condo and his gold pendants charming for a while, but they'll look at him as more fling than ring. And his old friends will wonder why he wandered off.