Short Take Road Test
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”
We can be pretty sure John Keats wasn’t thinking about automotive sheetmetal when he penned those words in 1818. But if Keats had been scribbling just 191 years later, his inspiration could very well have been this elegant and sexy coupe.
Okay, trying to set one current Mercedes automobile above the others in terms of beauty is tough; they all look terrific. Still, this coupe version of the latest Mercedes E-class, its sweeping roofline uninterrupted by a B pillar, is on a look-at-me par with the big Mercedes CL coupes, minus their mass and massive price tags.
Do not interpret this to mean bargain. The basic E350 coupe, with a 268-hp, 3.5-liter V-6, is $48,925. That soars to $55,525 for the E550, with its 382-hp, 5.5-liter V-8. Check all the option groups, and you wind up with a package like our test car: a cool $66,375. On the other hand, the most recent previous E-class coupe—the 1994 E320—started at $62,075. Wow.
The new coupe shares architectural elements with the E-class sedan, as well as its techno-goodies and a bevy of safety features, many of them standard. But there are also pieces from the C-class stable, contributing to much tidier dimensions. For the coupe, the E sedan’s 113.1-inch wheelbase has been trimmed to 106.9. That two-door is 6.7 inches shorter and 2.7 inches narrower than the four-door, and its 54.0-inch roof is 3.2 inches lower.
Aside from the achievement of a pillarless design in an age of ever tougher rollover standards, Mercedes has done a fine packaging job: The reduced dimensions have deleted nearly a third of the rear-seat space but haven’t made the E coupe a mere two-plus-two. Rear headroom will be on the wish lists of individuals over six feet tall, but there’s plenty of knee, leg, and toe room for two modestly sized adults. The seats are supportive, and climbing in or out is eased by the power front seats, which flip and glide forward.
Reduced dimensions should equate with reduced weight, and that seems to be true here. Our loaded test car weighed 3942 pounds, far from light, but still a couple hundred pounds better than what we anticipate for the sedan.
In any case, the coupe’s 5.5-liter V-8—one of the best naturally aspirated eights in the business—and seven-speed automatic transmission handle all those pounds very well indeed: zero to 60 mph in 4.8 seconds, the quarter-mile in 13.3 at 108 mph. It emits a refined V-8 rumble when it’s pinning occupants into their seatbacks and is an eager ally when it’s time to pick off back-road dawdlers.
We wish the coupe’s other dynamic elements were as compelling. The steering, though quick at 2.7 turns lock to lock, is thin on feedback. The suspension—featuring Mercedes’ electronically controlled adaptive shock absorbers—is a little too compliant for really headlong apex clipping, even in sport mode. We reserve judgment regarding braking performance; our test car, fresh from abuse at a press preview, had problems that stretched stopping distances far beyond expectations—Mercedes’ and ours. And the responses of the paddle-shifting feature are relaxed by serious sports-coupe standards. This is no BMW M3. If real haste is an objective, a new E63 AMG version is just around the corner. But alas, Mercedes says the AMG massage will be limited to the sedan.
On the other hand, we’d be surprised if anyone acquired this car with track days in mind. Like us, people are more likely to be seduced by its blend of power, comfort, and beauty that will never grow old.
