2018 Mercedes-Benz E400 4Matic Coupe Review - Pillarless Pomp and Ceremony

The 2018 Mercedes-Benz E400 Coupe’s high beams unfurl like a curtain, quickly and progressively spreading light across the forests on either side of the road. And that’s only the Benz lighting system’s third act.

It’s a late summer evening and you open the E400 Coupe’s vast door, welcomed by ambient lighting that swirls around the cabin, hued to your liking, with a glow bright enough to be useful but soft enough to be easily ignored. The turbocharged V6 ignites and a light show is instantly projected onto the house in front of you with radiant beams and excitable flashes.

With the auto industry well into its second century, it’s increasingly difficult for a luxury automaker to set itself apart. Equipment alone doesn’t do the trick, particularly when a car as costly as this heavily optioned 2018 Mercedes-Benz E400 4Matic Coupe lacks, for example, the ventilated seats of a $29,190 Kia Optima.

No, it’s the special stuff that makes the difference; it’s the memorable moments that distinguish the extraordinary from the ordinary. Heated seats must also warm the accompanying door panel and center console. A variety of dramatic light exhibitions must always attract your attention. The central infotainment display must seamlessly merge with the gauge cluster to create a vast screen stretching 28 inches across.

And the windows must roll down to reveal a pillarless structure, a redolent whiff of classic coupes long since expired.

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QOTD: It's 2017 - Would You Buy a Coupe?

At new car dealerships, coupes are thin on the ground. The demise of the Honda Accord coupe at the end of the 2017 model year shutters the mainstream midsize coupe segment, a category long since diminished by the disappearance of two-door Camrys, Altimas, and the Avengers.

Compact coupes are rare, too. You won’t find two-door versions of the Chevrolet Cruze, Ford Focus, Hyundai Elantra, Nissan Sentra, Subaru Impreza, Toyota Corolla, or Volkswagen Jetta, although their predecessors all offered coupe variants.

Chevrolet Monte Carlo, Chrysler Cordoba, Ford Thunderbird? Long gone. But coupes — genuine two-doors such as the pillarless Mercedes-Benz E400 4Matic I’m driving (and being massaged by) this week, or the Honda Civic, or the Infiniti Q60, or the Rolls-Royce Wraith — are still available.

Would you buy one?

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  • 3-On-The-Tree 4cyl as well.
  • Luke42 I want more information about Ford’s Project T3.The Silverado EV needs some competition beyond just the Rivian truck. The Cybertruck has missed the mark.The Cybertruck is special in that it’s the first time Tesla has introduced an uncompetitive EV. I hope the company learns from their mistakes. While Tesla is learning what they did wrong, I’ll be shopping to replace my GMC Sierra Hybrid with a Chevy, a Ford, or a Rivian — all while happily driving my Model Y.
  • 3-On-The-Tree I wished they wouldn’t go to the twin turbo V6. That’s why I bought a 2021 Tundra V8.
  • Oberkanone My grid hurts!Good luck with installing charger locations at leased locations with aging infrastructure. Perhaps USPS would have better start modernizing it's Post offices to meet future needs. Of course, USPS has no money for anything.
  • Dukeisduke If it's going to be a turbo 4-cylinder like the new Tacoma, I'll pass.BTW, I see lots of Tacomas on the road (mine is a 2013), but I haven't seen any 4th-gen trucks yet.