Quote:
Originally Posted by castagna It's doesnt look bad, but a brand as prestigious as MB shouldn't do these kind of things, they have the technology to design a new model. If its outdated now imagine how outdated is going to be when the other brands launch their new generation of compact cars.  |
Well Mercedes announced from the start that this would be a car designed with
costs in mind. On the bright side this should mean that this car can be offered to the consumer at essentially the same price as before (or perhaps even cheaper) as the tooling costs etc. are significantly kept down.
Also, this car might not be as "outdated" as is often claimed. Chassis' can easily be modified or improved. In this case, I would think that Mercedes beefed up the suspension in order to make it more competitive from a sporty driving point of view. Let the first roadtest tell us what this car can do.
I think the CL203 C-Class Sportcoupe got a bad rep in the US because magazines and perhaps some buyers didn't understand what this car was about. It might have had "sport" in its name, but it was by no means a sports sedan or sports car. It could be driven in a sporty fashion that most people would find suitable, but push it farther and it couldn't cope. I've driven the CL203 Sportcoupe three times. They can take spirited driving with ease, but push them a bit harder, enter into some sharp corners with high speed and you'll find that the car just wasn't made for this type of driving. Overall though I didn't find them that bad though, except for the early cheap interiors. It also didn't help that the engines at first available for this car weren't that powerful or refined.