Chapter 1 – The German Technique

Back in 2004 Mercedes introduced the world to a whole new segment in the form of the CLS-Class, a cross between a coupe and a sedan. The idea, at least on paper was brilliant, but unfortunately for Mercedes, it received a lot of hesitation and backlash from the automotive fanatics because of the “four-door coupe” tag. Though the idea was noble, the community wasn’t thrilled about Mercedes bending the definition of a “Coupe”.

But they weren’t the first to bend the unwritten rule book, in fact, it was the Rover P5 from 1962 that is the true pioneer in this space, but it was the 60s, and people were preoccupied with other issues like the Nam War and Civil Rights to question the design choices of a mid-scale British auto manufacturer. Even the original Lagonda had a coupe-like design but they obviously weren’t going to call it a “coupe limo” because Aston came from the shores that brought us the Oxford dictionary and James Bond.

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But clearly, back in the 60s, people were fine with it, in fact, they didn’t bat an eye and that is because the ’60s were clearly a more experimental and creative time in the realm of automobiles. But in the 21st-century people seem to take a more liberal approach towards pressing issues from back in the day, like racial and sexual discrimination but as it would appear, that conservative energy had to be channelized somewhere and the automotive industry is the new victim. So we are living the 60’s in reverse.

But I believe the biggest reason for this hate was the fact that Mercedes was single-handedly responsible for coining the term “4-door coupe”. Now by definition, a coupe is A car with a fixed roof, two doors, and a sloping rear. And this is when the blatent lying started which continues till this day wherein all German manufacturers have come to some sort of low-key gentlemen’s agreement to slap a random number next to their model name (such as 250, 220 in case of Mercs, 30d, 20d in case of BMW, etc) that once upon a time denoted the engine displacement but now they just prove that German’s can’t count for nuts, but we’ll come back to this rant some other day.

For now, coming back to the coupe crisis, the CLS even though was based on a completely flawed marketing scheme, the car was a looker and to no one’s surprise, it quickly caught on. This led to Audi and even BMW following in Merc’s footsteps with models like the A7 and 6-series Gran Coupe.

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But the Bavarian’s felt a little cornered and in a bid to beat Mercedes at their own game, created the famous BMW X6, a car/SUV/coupe SUV; famous for all the wrong reasons. When this “vehicle” was introduced back in 2008, it was making headlines for all the wrong reasons and received all sorts of mixed responses, most common amongst them was “get that thing off my face”, surprisingly the same reaction that the new G80 M3 and G82 M4 received, I guess history does repeat itself. But the fact remains it was a far cry from the boxy SUVs of the time, which helped it become the sales success that it is known to be today despite its blatant lack of practicality or off-road prowess. So the showbiz saying stands true, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.