2017 Mercedes-Benz C-Class Coupe: First Drive

What Is It? 2017 Mercedes-Benz C-Class Coupe: the sportier two-door version of its bread and butter C-Class sedan.

Starting Price: $40,000 - $82,000 (Estimated)

Competitors: Audi A5, BMW 3-Series, Cadillac ATS

Pros: Extreme performance spread between models offers something for (almost) everyone; top-level Mercedes-AMG C63 Coupe delivers relentless grunt; sporty and luxurious

Cons: Options can inflate MSRP considerably; bodywork looks odd from certain angles; steering column-mounted shifter belies its sporty demeanor.

Would I buy it with my own money? Yes, please—especially if an in-between C450 AMG model arrives in coupe form, since the overachieving C63 version is pricey.

Mercedes-AMG C63 S

With the exception of the rare, track-focused AMG Black Series edition, the prior generation of Mercedes-Benz’s C-Class was not unlike the Mr. Cellophane character in Chicago: nice and innocuous, but almost invisible to the point of disappearing into the background.

The revived C-Class family now turns heads like the best of them, inside and out. Not only does it look premium, with exterior styling that resembles a scaled-down S-Class, the reworked interior boasts a degree of refinement and luxury that appears to have trickled down from the upper rungs of the Mercedes-Benz family tree. Though longer and wider than its predecessor, the new C-Class Coupe is also lower than its four-door stablemate, offering a hunkered down stance as well as increased interior volume.

Topping the C-Class Coupe lineup (at least for now) are the Mercedes-AMG C63 and C63 S, which deliver a walloping 469 and 503 horsepower, respectively. Climbing into the top-tier C63 S model at Circuito Ascari in Southern Spain, it’s easy for this car’s relatively plush interior to assume a more menacing, sporty persona: in its most aggressive Track mode, the 8.4-inch navigation screen switches to an analog-style engine power meter, and the center information screen displays a boost gauge (which is especially curious because the burbling exhaust note makes it easy to forget this 4.0-liter V8 is twin-turbocharged).