Short Take Road Test
Maybe Klaus-Peter Claar got crosswise with DaimlerChrysler's board of management. Had a few too many Maß beers at the Cannstatter Volksfest and spilled bubespitzle down the boss's wife's blouse. How else could he have been stuck with developing a C-class hatchback for the United States of Sedan-dom - the very nation that rejected a version of the wildly popular BMW 3-series that had been given a Gremlin chop? Talk about setting someone up for the big career crash. Yikes.
Comparisons of the new C230 sports coupe with the ill-fated BMW 318ti are inevitable. The Benz's hatch surgery slices off 7.3 inches of length (the BMW lost 8.8 inches), trading the sedan's 12 cubic feet of enclosed trunk space for 10, to 38 cubes of hatch versatility. The sports coupe gets a four-banger, while the rest of the C-class (and 3-series) lineup has graduated to sixes. And the base price of $25,595 - $5000 less than a C240 - indicates deep de-contenting, as with the BMW, which sold at a similar discount.
But maybe Claar had allies deep in the organization that helped him to make lemonade of this lemon assignment, because the cost cutting seems less obvious. Yes, the seats of the base car are cloth-upholstered and manually adjusted, but the 318ti used a cheaper outdated rear suspension and different and cheaper switchgear, and shared the sedan's front-end sheetmetal unaltered. Claar's friends in the budget office helped him nab the four-door's optional Sport-package suspension as standard equipment and scored all-new exterior sheetmetal, bent into a much more raffish shape. Inside there's a sporty three-nacelle instrument binnacle, a unique three-spoke steering wheel, and genuine aluminum trim.
Seating for four is comfy unless the rear riders are tall of torso or hairdo, in which case the roofline's inch-lower sleekness will present an interference fit. The front buckets provide good lateral support, and the chic cloth is a welcome change from today's de rigueur hot-in-summer, cold-in-winter leather (a $1410 option).
And then there's the pièce de résistance, an idea that was featured on the 318ti California but is perfected here: the $995 panoramic sliding roof. Two glass panels cover the entire roof; the front one can pop up to vent or slide back over the rear one for open-air motoring. When the roof is open, a large wind-deflector panel in front of the opening tilts up to prevent any buffeting, booming, or cockpit turbulence at speeds up to 90 mph. The glass is treated to block all but 2.2 percent of the sun's ultraviolet radiation, and for full protection, a pair of cloth shades can be deployed electrically. It's a masterpiece, especially compared with the BMW's large, noisy, and windy cloth sunroof.
That brings us inevitably to the question of performance. The 192-hp supercharged four motivates its 3398-pound burden with relative ease, covering the quarter-mile in 15.7 seconds at 90 mph. That handily beats the 318ti and the VW GTI (Europe's original hot hatch), and it would have tied for second quickest in our "Coupes de Grace Redux" comparo (December 1999), matching the Acura Integra GS-R and Toyota Celica GT-S. But the C230 isn't as enjoyable to drive as those cars. Rowing this ropy six-speed shifter is far less satisfying. The gates are too widely spaced, and gear engagement is too vague. The engine sounds better than it did in the first SLKs, but it doesn't compare with the best sports coupes.
Nevertheless, this latest Benz takes to pretzeled pavement with greater élan than its C240 and C320 stablemates do, although the Michelin MXV4s hang on with only 0.78 g of conviction to their sporting cause. That's well under the "Coupes de Grace Redux" average of 0.82 g. Supercharged oversteer is available on demand, providing you switch off the standard electronic-stability program, but otherwise the car is a competent and confident pusher.
Does this C230 Kompressor earn its sports-coupe moniker? Not really. Does it need to, for Claar to keep his job? Maybe not. Mercedes has been on a push to find buyers younger than its current 52-year median age, with hip advertising and stylish, youthful new products. Young Bimmer hopefuls can simply buy older used cars and get the cachet, panache, and feeling of the new ones, which may explain why a watered-down BMW 318ti didn't fly. But a 30-something hipster drawn to this fetching, affordable, and moderately fun Benz probably won't be lured away by a used car dating to the stuffy, strictly business days.
Or we could be wrong, and Claar will forever regret his fumbled bubespitzle.
