QOTD: Something About My Benzo?

Up on Housing Project Hill

So let’s say you’re idly thumbing through the CarMax listings looking for CLS63 AMGs in a copper color. (Guilty as charged: they have one, and it’s more than I should spend, so I’m not going to add a garagemate for the 911 and Boxster any time soon.) Well, the CLS63 in the current body style is still expensive. Let’s drop down a bit to $59,998. What can we get for this money? Why, only the very worst and the very best Benzo you can buy in this country most of the time, in AMG trim.

No matter how many journalists return from the south of Spain singing the praises of the CLA45, we here at TTAC will likely remain unconvinced of the virtues of this over-pressurized Volkswagen Jetta-alike. As far as we can tell, the only real difference between this and a Stage ZZXX99-Something Mitsubishi Evo is that you can’t have the CLA with a stick-shift or a full helping of fast-and-furious street cred.

The CL63, on the other hand… well, sir, this is a proper motorcar. Ignore the fact that its predecessor, the strangely graceful and well-assembled C215 CL55, was the vehicle of choice for various disreputable idiots ranging from Cannonball-catheter crackpot Ed Bolian to, um, myself. Since the days of the 380SEC, the S-Class coupe has always struck just the right balance between conspicuous consumption and outrageous ostentation. There’s never been a reason to get one, which is why it’s so wonderful. Buying the coupe instead of the sedan costs you more up front, gets you less at trade-in, and frankly marks you as a bit of an odd bird. It’s a pure style move, and the CL63 makes it perfectly, from the wide, featureless grille up front that only the cognoscenti immediately recognize as the big coupe to the surprisingly subtle dropped tail and bland-but-tasteful lamps. In the middle, of course, you get the real reason any romantic buys the big Benz: it’s a pillarless coupe, known as a “hardtop” to most folks. The preferred coupe configuration in the pre-Colonnade era.

This car could ring the cash register for over $150K just four years ago, but now it’s yours for just over a third of that. Why would you even think of buying the CLA instead? Well, there’s the tiny matter of maintenance and repair. The old 380SEC was famous for durability: this 600,000-mile example isn’t even the most well-traveled 380SEC in the United States. The modern cars don’t have quite the same moxie, or so we’re told.

Which would you pick, dear reader? The car-of-the-moment CLA45, all FWD-based and humpback-whale-shaped? Or the elegant but potentially troublesome CL63? I’d go with the coupe, no questions asked. Except one, maybe: “The extended warranty is as good as they say, right?”