THE C-WORD

Coupé is a word few car makers use these days, but its spirit is alive and well in Germany. Sort of. STEPHEN DOBIE picks from rakish execs in petrol-PHEV, diesel and electric guises

- STEPHEN DOBIE

The coupé market was bustling 25 years ago.

Ford, Peugeot and Volvo were among the raft of mainstream names doing a roaring trade in handsome two-door cars at accessible prices. And in very lurid colours.

Today, the picture looks decidedly different and not merely because the trio we have here are all painted various shades of grey. A headcount outside of the £100k-plus sports car market amounts to just five cars following the trad coupé recipe - one of which is the fairly specialised Lotus Emira. Honda launched its cool, intriguing new Prelude just as the Audi TT, Porsche Cayman and a pair of GR-badged Toyotas fumbled out the door, leaving only BMW and Mercedes-Benz as dogged believers in a bodystyle that was once the party piece of any range.

Assembling three plush German coupés together used to be a doddle, but you must now employ a faster, looser definition of the word to do so. The Mercedes-Benz CLE is our test control: a traditional two-door, four-seat coupé of convincing style and versatility. Prices kick off at a reasonably friendly £48,195 and the lineup offers a choice of petrol, diesel and plugin hybrid powertrains, culminating in AMG’s six-cylinder 442bhp CLE 53. It’s the more mainstream four-pot 309bhp CLE 300e PHEV we have here.

The CLE can take some responsibility for the shrinking of the coupé market because it replaced both the C-Class and E-Class Coupés in one fell swoop in 2023. Though its size matches the latter, its look and feel align more closely with the former and it doesn’t - more’s the pity - offer the opportunity to drop all four windows and roll along with a pillarless breeze like a classic Benz ‘coop’.