![]() ![]() Mercedes spent nearly 2 billion mid-1990s dollars to develop the A-Class, a front-drive car roughly two feet shorter than the new Mini Cooper. The change has been more profound in Europe. Evolution has delivered the M-Class (SUV, AAV or whatever acronym you prefer), the AMG tuning treatment across the entire Mercedes line, a return to motorsports with a vengeance and lively, even humorous advertising in the States. Yes, the image has evolved over the last few years, of necessity-the necessity of cost constraints and global alliances and overcapacity and the like. More often than not, the hardware has backed the image. That image rests on conservative luxury cars that put engineering values before trends cars that are large, or at least heavy, with powerful engines, advanced technology and safety standards that surpass all others. Maybe someone there can tell you about the BMW 318ti.įor as long as anyone remembers, Mercedes-Benz has invested a lot of money and sweat cultivating a specific image in the United States. ![]() Or maybe it can explode like an anti-tank mine.Ĭontrol to Montvale. The juggernaut is rolling, and the three-door compact coupe can only stoke the boiler. In the States, calendar 2000 sales rose 8.8 percent to a record 205,600. Worldwide sales for calendar 2000 broke a million cars, up 5.2 percent from 1999. Sound like a plan? Mercedes' plans have worked well lately. buyers who embrace trucks with tailgates perceive hatchbacks, especially four-cylinder hatchbacks, as "cheap cars." An anticipated starting price of $26,000 isn’t exactly "cheap," but the time may be ripe to draw younger buyers with an entry-level Benz that puts more emphasis on lifestyle utility than on status symbolism. This flexibility is part of what sells SUVs, but the same U.S. Hatchback utility is undeniable and amply demonstrated by popping the lid on a C230 Sport Coupe. Attract new, younger buyers with a high-value price leader, spread the customer base and ensure the future by propagating lots of little S-Class and SL buyers along the way. We forgot to mention that this is a $26,000 Mercedes-Benz, if the folks at MBNA in Montvale, New Jersey, stick to their guns. Osthaus and his buds use this phrase: "Compact dynamism without compact compromises." It looks slick, with giant rims, a glass roof and driving dynamics that are unmistakably Mercedes-Benz. Survival has two passenger doors and a rear hatch. Yet by its sum, the C230 Sport Coupe is the most vital, momentous Mercedes in the United States since the M-Class, or maybe the original 190. We've seen the 2.3-liter supercharged inline four in the SLK and the C, and we've seen the six-speed manual trans in the SLK. We've seen the platform and basic chassis configuration under the SLK, the CLK and the new C-Class sedan. There's nothing really new in Mercedes-Benz's next American release, if you break it into pieces. "Survival" comes up in a conversation loosely focused on the 2002 C230 Kompressor Sport Coupe. Our hunch says Burkhard Osthaus is not a fan of so-called reality television. "It is about growth, and in the extreme, survival." "It is about dynamism, moving ahead," says Osthaus. Mercedes-Benz does not want to become Rolls-Royce, or worse, Buick, where the customer pool shrinks each year, thanks to nothing except the inevitability of death. Rolls-Royce in this context means a car company ghettoized at the tiptop of the automobile market-a novelty, almost moribund, dependent on the whims of the effete and elite. "We could not continue business as usual," says Osthaus, speaking on his company's behalf, "or we might become Rolls-Royce in America." Burkhard Osthaus makes a polite, personable dinner companion, but when the conversation veers in certain directions you see hints of obsession, or maybe phobia, around the edges of his eyes. Nice German name, isn't it? It belongs to an earnest man, early 30s, creased and manicured, son of a banker, born in the north of Germany and raised near Stuttgart, now general manager of passenger car development for Mercedes-Benz in North America. The C230 Sport Coupe uses the same Kompressor motor as is found in the SLK, coupled to a standard six-speed manual gearbox.īurkhard Osthaus. Although clearly related, the C-Class coupe shares no exterior body panels with the four-door sedan. ![]()
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