 Is the 2010 Mercedes E550 Coupe pretty?
This is no trivial matter.
After all, why would you buy an E Coupe when for about the same money you could get Mercedes' new E Sedan?
The mid-size four-door Benz is the standard by which all Mercedeses are measured. It's the company's bestselling model worldwide and the unimpeachable choice for every Beverly Hills tennis pro and real estate agent who ever lived. The E Sedan is bigger, more practical, more richly equipped. It's a car every bit as tightly nailed together, offering performance nearly equal to that of the sports-minded E Coupe.
Only one reason: The E Sedan is beastly looking.
In my review of June 12, I said the sedan was "very proper and Swabian and gloriously unartistic." In the months since, my opinion has only soured. I hate the way the car slumps at the head like a pole-axed buffalo. I loathe the over-shaved, winnowed taper around the grille. I detest the graceless quadrangle of windows on the sides. I gag on the exaggerated accent lines on the fuselage that don't visually intersect with anything in particular.
It's a terrific machine, but really, the E Sedan's homeliness has a kind of malign ambition about it.
Meanwhile, the E Coupe, the replacement for the long-lived CLK Coupe, is lovely. The grille -- with two horizontal bars supporting a softball-sized Mercedes emblem -- looks tougher, more masculine and declarative. The black-mesh intakes in the lower bumper are deeper and more aggressive. On the E Coupe, the accent lines actually give the shape some visual velocity, converging like metal contrails at the rear of the car with the deco-like fender flares. The roofline arches exquisitely over a pillarless canopy (that is, there's no "B" pillar roof support). Low, wide and rakish, the E Coupe design has an organized, coherent energy about it, a godly brow to the E Sedan's low forehead. |
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