Mercedes-Benz touts the 2017 C300 Coupe as a style car.
Admittedly, the German carmaker is right. With a bedazzled grille, sharp sidelines and a butt that would make a Kardashian envious, it's great to look at.
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What Mercedes is really admitting by calling it stylish, though, is that the C300 Coupe exists solely because of its design. Moreover, people will choose it not for what it does but for what it represents. It's a car that tells the world you've got an eye for design.
At first blush, for me, simply making a style statement wasn't at all worth the $43,000 base price. An unrelated weekend shopping trip changed my mind, though. I finally get the compact two-door Benz.
What it's not
Just minutes into my first time behind the wheel of the C300 Coupe, I slammed the throttle into the carpet and played audience to the tone of the car's 241-horsepower four-cylinder engine.
If you'd asked me to intuit what the C300's engine might sound like before actually having heard it, based upon its classy exterior, I would have wagered a note somewhere between Miles Davis and a panther. You know, urbane but also animalistic.
Instead, the thing was decidedly buzzy but with a sporty twinge, like a hive of very brawny bees. Admittedly, it's not exactly the enlivening or sophisticated tone I had hoped for.
Although the athletic apian engine can propel the car to 60 mph from a standstill in 5.9 seconds, the note immediately informed me this was not a car aimed at driving enthusiasts. Granted, the steering is quick and heavy and the suspension soft but taut. However, those seemed to reinforce the car's highly evolved nature, rather than push it into the realm of sport. You'll want the newly created C43 for that.
Striking driving-enthusiast mobile off the list, I turned to the tech.
At the top of the wood-encrusted center console is Mercedes' COMAND infotainment system, displayed from a tablet-like screen attached to the dash. It's a polarizing design, for sure. Whether you like the looks or not, you have to give the designers kudos for trying something different.
What you can't nod in approval over is the COMAND system itself. Users interface with it through either a touchpad or a scroll wheel mounted just beneath it. It's a quick system with lots of functionality, but none of it is intuitive or easy. It's the antithesis of user friendly.
What's more, the C300 Coupe doesn't offer Apple CarPlay or Android Auto (it might get those in 18 months or so, Mercedes informed me) nor does it have Wi-Fi. Both features are common not only in the segment but in inexpensive economy cars these days.
Granted, the C300 does offer tons of semi-autonomous safety tech called DISTRONIC PLUS with Steering Assist. I first tested this system on the C300's bigger, faster brother, the C63 Sedan, last year. It's great as an adaptive cruise control system. However, it lacks the robust steering assist of Tesla's Autopilot.
Those things said, I decided the C300 Coupe wasn't a car pushing the boundaries of automotive technology either. So tech car, too, was removed from the record.
Adding further confusion to my uncertainty of what exactly the C300 Coupe was trying to be, most of the cars we drove at the drive event in Maine were loaded up with all the bells and whistles. In fact, most were priced around the $60,000 mark. This, as you might understand, is a lot of money for a compact coupe that won't drive itself or tear holes in your clothes with its straight-line speed.
Even days after attending the Maine event, I was still at a loss at how to encapsulate the C300 Coupe.
"What's the point of this car?" I murmured to myself, as I hemmed and hawed through countless drafts of the my first drive with it.
Then, this weekend, it all fell into place. I finally got it.
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