The Author's Experience with the Mercedes-AMG C 43 Coupe

As I spent time behind the wheel of the Mercedes-AMG C 43 Coupe, I was impressed by its sensible and easy-to-use interface. The steering wheel features proper buttons, allowing for a range of customization options to suit my driving style. I set up shortcuts on the steering wheel to access different settings, such as dynamic mode stability off exhaust allowed or manual gearbox, which proved convenient. Additionally, the dampers can be adjusted to accommodate various preferences, and I found that comfort mode was a good starting point.

The performance of the Mercedes-AMG C 43 Coupe is undoubtedly its most striking feature. With a power figure starting with a four, it stands out as the only car in this lineup with such a high output. The 4-cylinder engine delivers impressive acceleration, with 38 miles per hour in second gear taking it to almost 60 miles per hour in under 50 seconds. While not the most sonorous engine sound, it's certainly noticeable and engaging. However, as is often the case with performance cars, the upper echelons of the rev range are best left unexplored on public roads.

To get the most out of the engine, I focused on driving through the mid-range in third, fourth, and fifth gears, where the engine thrums along nicely and doesn't put too much stress on the gearbox. The box itself is not the quickest or smoothest, but it handles the power delivery well. When shifting between gears, the transmission takes a slightly longer time to respond, which may be worth considering for those who prioritize this aspect of driving.

One area where the Mercedes-AMG C 43 Coupe excels is in its ride and handling balance. The car's suspension is set up to provide a firm but not unyielding ride, particularly on the UK roads. I found that switching to comfort mode made a significant difference, allowing for a more relaxed driving experience. While it may lack some of the suppleness compared to other cars in this class, the handling remains tight and responsive.

The car's dynamics are akin to those of a Porsche 911, with a focus on front-end weight transfer and stability control that makes it feel highly capable. The steering is precise and linear, providing a sense of connection to the road that's hard to match. While some might argue that this balance tips towards the front end, I found the car's behavior to be reassuringly stable.

Ultimately, the Mercedes-AMG C 43 Coupe is an excellent driver's car that delivers impressive performance and handling capabilities. Its unique blend of features makes it a compelling choice for those seeking a dynamic driving experience without compromising on comfort or practicality. Whether you're looking for a car to tackle long road trips or simply enjoy spirited drives, the Mercedes-AMG C 43 Coupe is definitely worth considering.

In conclusion, while there may be other cars that better excel in terms of ride and handling balance, the Mercedes-AMG C 43 Coupe holds its own as an exceptional driver's car. Its performance, dynamics, and overall driving experience make it a great choice for those seeking an engaging drive. As with any car purchase decision, personal preferences will always play a role; however, the C 43 Coupe is undoubtedly worth exploring.

Where does this leave us? Ultimately, it comes down to what you're willing to pay for and what you expect from your driving experience. The BMW M4's snarling straight-six engine and performance capabilities are hard to match, but may be too hardcore for everyday use. On the other hand, the Mercedes-AMG C 43 Coupe offers a unique blend of features that will appeal to those seeking a high-performance car with practicality.

If you're looking for the ultimate sports coupe – one that gets your heart racing and pushes you to drive harder – then the Porsche Cayman is still the best choice. Its engaging handling, responsive steering, and distinctive driving experience make it an unbeatable combination. The Mercedes-AMG C 43 Coupe may have its drawbacks, particularly with regards to engine noise and gearbox performance, but these are minor complaints in what is otherwise an exceptional car.

So, hit like, subscribe, and turn on those notifications – you never know when another exciting driving experience will come your way!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: encoupes they really do come in all shapes and sizes as if to prove the point take the latest bmw 2 series which is more of a two-door saloon than a sleek and rakish coupe however the 2-series has always been one of our favorite driver's cars particularly in flagship m2 competition guys now the m2 version of this new car is still a little way off so to wet our appetite here's the new m240i now with xdrive four-wheel drive for the first time now four-wheel drive is also what the mercedes amg cla45s has got he's also got four doors which makes it a strange sort of coupe yet you're willing to overlook this when you also consider it has 415 brake horsepower which is over 100 horsepower more than the entry-level porsche cayman yet with its mid-engine layout two-wheel drive two seats and lowest kerb weight it's arguably the purest driver's car of the lot so which of these sports coupes is our favorite well let's find out welcome to snowdonia and welcome also to the new 2-series specifically the 2-series in range-topping m240i trim now this car's a big deal and it's also a relief it's a big deal because bmw performance coupes tend to be pretty good and we look forward to them it's a relief because ever since the current one series arrived on its front driven platform have been question marks about whether the two series was also going to move on to a a front driven platform what didn't help matters was that when the two series grand coupe arrived also on the front driven platform of the one series and i think at that point a lot of us started to get a little bit jittery but no here it is the two series on the same platform as the three and the four series natively rear driven although this one's x drive so four wheel drive longitudinally engines so you get four cylinders lower down the range but this range topping 240i is a b58 six cylinder for the same engine you find in a supra and in faster versions of the three and the four series and this will be the hottest 2 series until the m2 arrives later this year so the aim today is to get to know the m240i a little bit better on british roads we've already driven it in germany quite liked it but obviously british b roads especially roads are very much the acid test for cars like this and we've also brought along a couple of its classmates so my colleague james disdale is somewhere behind us or in front of us i'm not sure where he's in a basic porsche 718 cayman and that's an interesting rival because of 46 000 pounds it is more or less exactly the same price as this m240i neither of the cars are quite standard they're not quite basic but you're not going to consider one of these cars without the other so we've brought along to see how they compare the other car which is being driven by matt pryor is the mercedes amg cla 45 plus now i know some of you will be raising eyebrows because that car is a little bit more expensive it starts at around 56 000 pounds but we've brought it along because the porsche is a proper driver's car the bmw we hope is a proper driver's car and the cla-45 is also a proper driver's car in a way that the 35 isn't so the thing about the new m240i is it's actually got quite a lot more serious since the last generation the footprint's grown a bit as you'd expect but in dynamic terms what's much more meaningful is the contact patch which has also grown it's actually pretty similar now to um what you'd find on the original m20 competition m2 power as well is up obviously around 370 brake horsepower so this is now a very very powerful car with a big contact patch and four-wheel drive so you would expect the performance levels to be pretty stratospheric and without wanting to go too ott about it they really are let's talk about the power train because i think this is the one area in which any owners of the old car upgrading this car gonna notice straight away what the changes are obviously you've got more power and torque but it's the gearbox that is blowing me away to be honest zf and bmw have worked for a long time on this eight-speed torque converter and they've now got the technology so good but they're actually willing to put it in an m3 and the in this car this isn't precisely the same gearbox as you'll find in an m3 it couldn't cope with that level of torque but it's the same technology this thing will pop in up shifts it's just this is that downshift fourth gear third gear let's go up again they're still not quite dual clutch quick but honestly they're probably still within 10 of what you'd expect from a really good dual clutch box it just raises the level of intent in this car quite a lot engine wise this b58 straight six is is a known quantity and also a a much loved one it's popped up in in many of the fastest non-m bmws for years now it's just got an endlessly wide torque band but it's also got a pretty decent top end revs to six and a half thousand again get there pull the paddle or not let the gearbox sorted out but the up shift is absolutely spotless sometimes mercedes their mct gearboxes can really fluff their lines if you uh upshift anywhere near the red line not so with this zf box it's a real real operator so let's see what this car can do i've got it in sport individual with the steering in comfort i've got the dampers in sport we've got the engine obviously in its most aggressive mode i have to say brakes are a bit soft turning is really nicely judged though it's got a slightly languid gt car feel i mean the porsche is going to feel a lot sharper than this on turning but this feels really nicely judged typical bmw there's not actually an awful lot of steering feel but that's not translating into a lack of confidence which is quite nice it's quite light off center and then the weight comes in it is nice it's nicely suited throttle response good very good i don't know how much more this this straight six this b58 has to give probably quite a lot so the fact that it's running in a reasonably relaxed state of tune means that they can really really prioritize that throttle response again though the brakes i'm not totally convinced by the brakes i think they do a they do a reasonably good job but you can't really lean on them i know for a fact that in the porsche you get a really nice wall of resistance that you've just got to push through i tell you what though it is starting to spit here and the traction of this x-drive drive line is immense not really surprising you've got that new contact patch and the x-drive system is permanent it's always operating what else do i like damping it's quite a heavy car you can feel that but there's a real sophistication in the body movements that you don't actually always get with cars sort of in the sub 50 000 pound mark especially the big volume ones a bit earlier when we were driving down this road i had the dampers still in comfort and to be honest the car was still holding itself together pretty well it was only when you really start to push on a bit and and start to engage that m sport differential in the back of it or especially mid corner the rear outside of the car would sort of uh collapse a little bit uncomfortably and the car would get into a little bit of roll over steer territory which is obviously good fun but not always what you want when you're sight reading a road i have to say just knock the dampers up into sport it's completely cured that i think if you wouldn't come into this car fresh with sort of no preconceptions you'd find it was really really nicely balanced very satisfying one of the other nice things that doesn't seem to have been hurt too much by by the inclusion of x drive is that this car still got that slightly one-dimensional but really satisfying throttle adjustability that you get in fast bmw coupes it's never going to tuck its nose in mid corner with a lift and throttle like the porsche will but if you get the car into the corner and get it balanced up and just begin to squeeze the throttle it moves from the back first and foremost it's obviously been set up really carefully this car and the result is a car that gives you a lot of four-wheel drive security and a lot of rear-wheel drive playfulness again it's the kind of blend that people who don't necessarily want something as hardcore as a full m offering are going to be quite grateful for and it works really nicely in the m240i the differential the m sport diff in the back axle is really integral to that it's really clean acting really predictable it just feels like a very mature and sophisticated car and i think we can probably forget the notion of uh you know this being an m light and somehow junior and inferior offering to the m2 i think it's going to be it's not gonna be as quick or precise as the m2 but for what it's designed to be a little bit more gt in its dna it's very very versatile and i think it's limits in a really nice place it just seems to again grip and slip in exactly the places you'd want it to for a sub m performance car i'm gonna hand over to my colleague james disdale now he's gonna tell you a little bit about the porsche and uh on the basis for when i saw him earlier he was positively salivating about it i'm sure he'll give you some very good reasons why you should buy that car instead of this but i think in the cold light of day this is a very difficult car to beat this new m240i the porsche 718 cayman costs just over forty six thousand pounds or forty eight thousand pounds if fitted with our cars seven speed pdk twin clutch gearbox for that you get a turbocharged two liter flat four that delivers 296 brake horsepower and 280 pounds for the torque norton 62 takes 4.9 seconds which drops to 4.7 seconds when you have the optional sport chrono pack top speed is 170 miles an hour so the porsche cayman in some ways there's a bit of an outlier in this group the other two are spun off family cars basically you've got the mercedes which is effectively a hatchback underneath and the two series is a shortened three series executive saloon but this is a proper bespoke sports car it's a bespoke chassis it's a mid-engine layout rear-wheel drive now obviously that means there are some compromises we haven't got any rear seats now if that's a consideration stop here we don't need to talk about the cayman anymore but look beyond that and the game is actually quite sensible it's got the best driving position i think of the three sit nice and low there's plenty of space in here and it's actually surprisingly practical it's a big boot at the front hatchback of the rear it's pretty good now weirdly being the sports car the porsche is quite heavily outgunned by the other two and by quite a lot so this two lead to flat 4 is 296 brake horsepower that's well over 100 brake horsepower down on the mercedes and not far short again with the bmw it's also well there's the sound isn't there i know we're gonna have to talk about it fact is we've been going on and on about it not being a six cylinder for a long time and in many respects most people have got used to it and you can see why because yes it's down on power but the turbo charger means there's lots and lots of torque there's been some changes to it recently so it's had a gasoline particulate filter and some changes to the tuning to meet various emissions regulations so compared to the early cars it feels a bit gutless low down below 3000 there's not a lot going on but once it gets some revs on it actually goes well and let's not forget it's weighs just under 1400 kilos to cayman so it's quite a lot lighter than the other two so while it does lack outright performance and if you read the official notch 60 specs it's absolutely rinsed by the other two but on the road once it's rolling well it's not slow and the noise yes when it first came out that kind of rough grumpy sound wasn't a patch on the old flat six but it is at least authentic even the bmw the six cylinder bmw there's there's kind of an edge of synthesis to it that it doesn't feel entirely natural whereas this is with a sports exhaust as well it's a real engine sound no it's not a particularly uplifting one but it's a real internal combustion engine when it's paired with this seven speed pdk gearbox you can absolutely cover ground at an astonishing rate now i'll be honest i'd quite like to have a manual in a cayman feels more like a proper driver's car but this seven speed is so good you really don't miss for most of the time a manual gearbox it's so fast so precise that you can just barrel up the corners haul on the brakes rattle down a few gears and it does it almost seamlessly it allows you just to keep your hands on the wheel and concentrate on the road it's not a hindrance it just allows you to go faster safer but of course what makes the porsche the car is what makes it unequivocally the best drivers car here is the chassis as i say that mid-engine layout gives it a near-perfect 50-50 weight distribution and the way it stitches together a road like this is just sublime the other two they can really get from point a to point b very very quickly as can this and probably when the going gets really slippery and twisty the other two would probably show this a clean pair of heels but not by much but you'd be having way more fun in this the steering is just perfect it's fast but not too fast it's got just a beautifully geared rate of response so you just roll into a corner and there's just enough feedback they filter out the stuff you don't need to know but keeping the stuff you do after driving the other two it's a revelation and then there's a suspension now this car's got a few bits going on so we've got the adaptive dampers we've got the torque vectoring rear diff but we've driven enough caymans without those bits to know that the base car is just as good you can just load it up in the corner and you feel each axle taking its share of the cornering forces you know exactly where you are the feedback you get through the wheel and the seat of your pants and you can play with the balance just a little lift of the throttle a little stab of the throttle a little tweak of the wheel and the car's attitude just shifts subtly it's a car you don't have to be driving like your hair is on fire if you had some to really enjoy it's a car that rewards at any speed and then there are the brakes now the other two they're either a bit soft or a bit grabby depending on where you are in the travel with the porsche you can just lean on the brakes as hard as you want the pedal progression is perfect the power is immense and this is just an entry level cayman braking setup you can just feel exactly where you are in terms of the grip you've got when leaning hard onto the brakes into a corner and yes we've got those adaptive dampers but they are superb they're just over a thousand pounds or so if you can tick that box do it because the body control is just incredible you can select between normal and sport and on the road sport it's fine it's firm it's never jarring but frankly most of the time just leave it in comfort let it do its own thing the car just corners flat fuss-free it's firm over bigger stuff at slow speed but it's never uncomfortable it just rounds off all the edges the money that porsche must have spent on this damping you feel it compared to the other two the whole suspension just feels like next level investment as a driver's car the cayman there's still not a lot that can touch it really the other two are faster and obviously they're more useful and i don't know how that shakes out in the overall scheme of things the big verdict but if all you want to do is drive and enjoy driving this is the car the mercedes-amg cla-45s comes in at a whisker under 61 000 pounds yikes but for that you do get a turbocharged 2-liter four-cylinder engine that delivers a remarkable 415 brake horsepower and 369 pounds for the torque that means not 62 miles an hour in just four seconds and a top speed of 168 miles an hour so welcome to the inside of the mercedes cla afg a45 mercedes amg class whatever it's it's the mercedes and i like it in here it's pretty nice it's not the latest generation of mercedes interior in fact and for some in some respects i think it's it's better for it i get a very good driving position very straight really figure-hugging seats which is nice and it's a really pleasant dash layout with these vents that sort of look like sort of turbine blades i think they're really they're really cool but most significantly when it comes to being inside it it gets a slightly previous generation infotainment system it does rattle a bit i don't know if you're going to hear that which means i get a touch screen there but it's also controllable by a touch pad on here which i've got something to rest my wrist on and i can also control it via a little swipey thing on here and the rest of the steering wheel has proper buttons it's actually very sensible very easy to use you can set up these little shortcuts down here on the steering wheel to do different things so for example i can have a shortcut dynamic mode stability off exhaust allowed or as i prefer to keep it in manual gearbox and then this other one controls the dampers but i tend to leave those in comfort but i will come to in a moment and so to the performance this is the most powerful car here it's the only one with a power figure that starts with a with a four it's got a very height specific output four cylinder engine because amg is all about engines as you'll know so 38 miles an hour second gear takes it to almost 60 takes about 50 55 something like that it's a very high rating it's not the world's most sonorous four-cylinder but it's not a bad sound but as you'll know as with most cars performance cars they're too fast for the road so actually you can't be in the upper echelons of the rev range in third fourth fifth whatever so what i tend to do and the engine responses is nice around around those areas is be sort of through the mid-range in third fourth fifth and then between sort of 40 and 60 miles an hour which is the type of driving speed that's where it sits it it thrums along quite nicely and also it doesn't trouble the gearbox too much because you're not always asking for rapid gear shifts and this box it's not the world's quickest and smoothest and as you may have heard when i changed up from second let's just try that again if i go up to the to towards the top of the red line took quite a long time to go from one to the other so the gearbox is not its strong point but the engine response is good and the sound is quite zingy and responsive and it's just i mean it's quick no denying in this company it's a fast car and when it comes to the ride and handling what i like it i like it it's quite firm it it lacks some of the suppleness that you'd get in other cars in this class it is it is it is pretty pretty stiff for the road in the uk particularly you might as well put the dampers in their comfort mode they also have a sport mode which actually is is is fine it doesn't make the ride too much harsher there's a sport plus and i think you'd reserve that for the racetrack really it's that becomes really sort of pattery and brittle but in comfort it gives the wheels a little bit of movement a little bit of breath but body control is really tight lean is limited dive is limited steering i like very much it's got a really nice buildup of weight just off straight ahead it feels really keyed in and turning it's not unlike and i mean this as a as a compliment it's not unlike a sort of porsche 911 racket in that it's in that it's it just takes up weight really nicely it's super accurate and linear it's very very good the handling balance tends towards sort of the front first it feels it feels like it goes up to the limit of adhesion to the front first and then it starts to worry about the back uh by applying power that that that way it doesn't feel like a four wheel drive system that's 50 50 or inherently rear biased it's very much a sort of front led car with the stability and security pushed in from the rear when it when it needs it all in all it's actually quite a good car it's an entertaining car it's a good guy it's a really really capable car quite a lot of time for it whether it's quite as finessed i think in terms of ride and handling balance because the others well that i'm not quite so convinced about but driven in isolation it's a really good thing okay so where does that leave us well in many respects he pays you money and he makes your choice the bmw where we loved it's snarling straight six his performance its driver engagement and its ability to perform as a mini gt car with the mercedes it's the blistering performance and the staggering cross-country pace that really impresses even if it is a little hardcore for day-to-day use but ultimately if you're looking for the ultimate sports coupe the one that gets your heart racing the fastest the one that you want to grab the keys to and take for a driver any time of day or night well it has to be the porsche cayman which is so wonderful to drive you're even willing to forgive it that farty flat 4 engine and don't forget if you like this video hit like subscribe and smash that notifications button so you never miss another auto carvingcoupes they really do come in all shapes and sizes as if to prove the point take the latest bmw 2 series which is more of a two-door saloon than a sleek and rakish coupe however the 2-series has always been one of our favorite driver's cars particularly in flagship m2 competition guys now the m2 version of this new car is still a little way off so to wet our appetite here's the new m240i now with xdrive four-wheel drive for the first time now four-wheel drive is also what the mercedes amg cla45s has got he's also got four doors which makes it a strange sort of coupe yet you're willing to overlook this when you also consider it has 415 brake horsepower which is over 100 horsepower more than the entry-level porsche cayman yet with its mid-engine layout two-wheel drive two seats and lowest kerb weight it's arguably the purest driver's car of the lot so which of these sports coupes is our favorite well let's find out welcome to snowdonia and welcome also to the new 2-series specifically the 2-series in range-topping m240i trim now this car's a big deal and it's also a relief it's a big deal because bmw performance coupes tend to be pretty good and we look forward to them it's a relief because ever since the current one series arrived on its front driven platform have been question marks about whether the two series was also going to move on to a a front driven platform what didn't help matters was that when the two series grand coupe arrived also on the front driven platform of the one series and i think at that point a lot of us started to get a little bit jittery but no here it is the two series on the same platform as the three and the four series natively rear driven although this one's x drive so four wheel drive longitudinally engines so you get four cylinders lower down the range but this range topping 240i is a b58 six cylinder for the same engine you find in a supra and in faster versions of the three and the four series and this will be the hottest 2 series until the m2 arrives later this year so the aim today is to get to know the m240i a little bit better on british roads we've already driven it in germany quite liked it but obviously british b roads especially roads are very much the acid test for cars like this and we've also brought along a couple of its classmates so my colleague james disdale is somewhere behind us or in front of us i'm not sure where he's in a basic porsche 718 cayman and that's an interesting rival because of 46 000 pounds it is more or less exactly the same price as this m240i neither of the cars are quite standard they're not quite basic but you're not going to consider one of these cars without the other so we've brought along to see how they compare the other car which is being driven by matt pryor is the mercedes amg cla 45 plus now i know some of you will be raising eyebrows because that car is a little bit more expensive it starts at around 56 000 pounds but we've brought it along because the porsche is a proper driver's car the bmw we hope is a proper driver's car and the cla-45 is also a proper driver's car in a way that the 35 isn't so the thing about the new m240i is it's actually got quite a lot more serious since the last generation the footprint's grown a bit as you'd expect but in dynamic terms what's much more meaningful is the contact patch which has also grown it's actually pretty similar now to um what you'd find on the original m20 competition m2 power as well is up obviously around 370 brake horsepower so this is now a very very powerful car with a big contact patch and four-wheel drive so you would expect the performance levels to be pretty stratospheric and without wanting to go too ott about it they really are let's talk about the power train because i think this is the one area in which any owners of the old car upgrading this car gonna notice straight away what the changes are obviously you've got more power and torque but it's the gearbox that is blowing me away to be honest zf and bmw have worked for a long time on this eight-speed torque converter and they've now got the technology so good but they're actually willing to put it in an m3 and the in this car this isn't precisely the same gearbox as you'll find in an m3 it couldn't cope with that level of torque but it's the same technology this thing will pop in up shifts it's just this is that downshift fourth gear third gear let's go up again they're still not quite dual clutch quick but honestly they're probably still within 10 of what you'd expect from a really good dual clutch box it just raises the level of intent in this car quite a lot engine wise this b58 straight six is is a known quantity and also a a much loved one it's popped up in in many of the fastest non-m bmws for years now it's just got an endlessly wide torque band but it's also got a pretty decent top end revs to six and a half thousand again get there pull the paddle or not let the gearbox sorted out but the up shift is absolutely spotless sometimes mercedes their mct gearboxes can really fluff their lines if you uh upshift anywhere near the red line not so with this zf box it's a real real operator so let's see what this car can do i've got it in sport individual with the steering in comfort i've got the dampers in sport we've got the engine obviously in its most aggressive mode i have to say brakes are a bit soft turning is really nicely judged though it's got a slightly languid gt car feel i mean the porsche is going to feel a lot sharper than this on turning but this feels really nicely judged typical bmw there's not actually an awful lot of steering feel but that's not translating into a lack of confidence which is quite nice it's quite light off center and then the weight comes in it is nice it's nicely suited throttle response good very good i don't know how much more this this straight six this b58 has to give probably quite a lot so the fact that it's running in a reasonably relaxed state of tune means that they can really really prioritize that throttle response again though the brakes i'm not totally convinced by the brakes i think they do a they do a reasonably good job but you can't really lean on them i know for a fact that in the porsche you get a really nice wall of resistance that you've just got to push through i tell you what though it is starting to spit here and the traction of this x-drive drive line is immense not really surprising you've got that new contact patch and the x-drive system is permanent it's always operating what else do i like damping it's quite a heavy car you can feel that but there's a real sophistication in the body movements that you don't actually always get with cars sort of in the sub 50 000 pound mark especially the big volume ones a bit earlier when we were driving down this road i had the dampers still in comfort and to be honest the car was still holding itself together pretty well it was only when you really start to push on a bit and and start to engage that m sport differential in the back of it or especially mid corner the rear outside of the car would sort of uh collapse a little bit uncomfortably and the car would get into a little bit of roll over steer territory which is obviously good fun but not always what you want when you're sight reading a road i have to say just knock the dampers up into sport it's completely cured that i think if you wouldn't come into this car fresh with sort of no preconceptions you'd find it was really really nicely balanced very satisfying one of the other nice things that doesn't seem to have been hurt too much by by the inclusion of x drive is that this car still got that slightly one-dimensional but really satisfying throttle adjustability that you get in fast bmw coupes it's never going to tuck its nose in mid corner with a lift and throttle like the porsche will but if you get the car into the corner and get it balanced up and just begin to squeeze the throttle it moves from the back first and foremost it's obviously been set up really carefully this car and the result is a car that gives you a lot of four-wheel drive security and a lot of rear-wheel drive playfulness again it's the kind of blend that people who don't necessarily want something as hardcore as a full m offering are going to be quite grateful for and it works really nicely in the m240i the differential the m sport diff in the back axle is really integral to that it's really clean acting really predictable it just feels like a very mature and sophisticated car and i think we can probably forget the notion of uh you know this being an m light and somehow junior and inferior offering to the m2 i think it's going to be it's not gonna be as quick or precise as the m2 but for what it's designed to be a little bit more gt in its dna it's very very versatile and i think it's limits in a really nice place it just seems to again grip and slip in exactly the places you'd want it to for a sub m performance car i'm gonna hand over to my colleague james disdale now he's gonna tell you a little bit about the porsche and uh on the basis for when i saw him earlier he was positively salivating about it i'm sure he'll give you some very good reasons why you should buy that car instead of this but i think in the cold light of day this is a very difficult car to beat this new m240i the porsche 718 cayman costs just over forty six thousand pounds or forty eight thousand pounds if fitted with our cars seven speed pdk twin clutch gearbox for that you get a turbocharged two liter flat four that delivers 296 brake horsepower and 280 pounds for the torque norton 62 takes 4.9 seconds which drops to 4.7 seconds when you have the optional sport chrono pack top speed is 170 miles an hour so the porsche cayman in some ways there's a bit of an outlier in this group the other two are spun off family cars basically you've got the mercedes which is effectively a hatchback underneath and the two series is a shortened three series executive saloon but this is a proper bespoke sports car it's a bespoke chassis it's a mid-engine layout rear-wheel drive now obviously that means there are some compromises we haven't got any rear seats now if that's a consideration stop here we don't need to talk about the cayman anymore but look beyond that and the game is actually quite sensible it's got the best driving position i think of the three sit nice and low there's plenty of space in here and it's actually surprisingly practical it's a big boot at the front hatchback of the rear it's pretty good now weirdly being the sports car the porsche is quite heavily outgunned by the other two and by quite a lot so this two lead to flat 4 is 296 brake horsepower that's well over 100 brake horsepower down on the mercedes and not far short again with the bmw it's also well there's the sound isn't there i know we're gonna have to talk about it fact is we've been going on and on about it not being a six cylinder for a long time and in many respects most people have got used to it and you can see why because yes it's down on power but the turbo charger means there's lots and lots of torque there's been some changes to it recently so it's had a gasoline particulate filter and some changes to the tuning to meet various emissions regulations so compared to the early cars it feels a bit gutless low down below 3000 there's not a lot going on but once it gets some revs on it actually goes well and let's not forget it's weighs just under 1400 kilos to cayman so it's quite a lot lighter than the other two so while it does lack outright performance and if you read the official notch 60 specs it's absolutely rinsed by the other two but on the road once it's rolling well it's not slow and the noise yes when it first came out that kind of rough grumpy sound wasn't a patch on the old flat six but it is at least authentic even the bmw the six cylinder bmw there's there's kind of an edge of synthesis to it that it doesn't feel entirely natural whereas this is with a sports exhaust as well it's a real engine sound no it's not a particularly uplifting one but it's a real internal combustion engine when it's paired with this seven speed pdk gearbox you can absolutely cover ground at an astonishing rate now i'll be honest i'd quite like to have a manual in a cayman feels more like a proper driver's car but this seven speed is so good you really don't miss for most of the time a manual gearbox it's so fast so precise that you can just barrel up the corners haul on the brakes rattle down a few gears and it does it almost seamlessly it allows you just to keep your hands on the wheel and concentrate on the road it's not a hindrance it just allows you to go faster safer but of course what makes the porsche the car is what makes it unequivocally the best drivers car here is the chassis as i say that mid-engine layout gives it a near-perfect 50-50 weight distribution and the way it stitches together a road like this is just sublime the other two they can really get from point a to point b very very quickly as can this and probably when the going gets really slippery and twisty the other two would probably show this a clean pair of heels but not by much but you'd be having way more fun in this the steering is just perfect it's fast but not too fast it's got just a beautifully geared rate of response so you just roll into a corner and there's just enough feedback they filter out the stuff you don't need to know but keeping the stuff you do after driving the other two it's a revelation and then there's a suspension now this car's got a few bits going on so we've got the adaptive dampers we've got the torque vectoring rear diff but we've driven enough caymans without those bits to know that the base car is just as good you can just load it up in the corner and you feel each axle taking its share of the cornering forces you know exactly where you are the feedback you get through the wheel and the seat of your pants and you can play with the balance just a little lift of the throttle a little stab of the throttle a little tweak of the wheel and the car's attitude just shifts subtly it's a car you don't have to be driving like your hair is on fire if you had some to really enjoy it's a car that rewards at any speed and then there are the brakes now the other two they're either a bit soft or a bit grabby depending on where you are in the travel with the porsche you can just lean on the brakes as hard as you want the pedal progression is perfect the power is immense and this is just an entry level cayman braking setup you can just feel exactly where you are in terms of the grip you've got when leaning hard onto the brakes into a corner and yes we've got those adaptive dampers but they are superb they're just over a thousand pounds or so if you can tick that box do it because the body control is just incredible you can select between normal and sport and on the road sport it's fine it's firm it's never jarring but frankly most of the time just leave it in comfort let it do its own thing the car just corners flat fuss-free it's firm over bigger stuff at slow speed but it's never uncomfortable it just rounds off all the edges the money that porsche must have spent on this damping you feel it compared to the other two the whole suspension just feels like next level investment as a driver's car the cayman there's still not a lot that can touch it really the other two are faster and obviously they're more useful and i don't know how that shakes out in the overall scheme of things the big verdict but if all you want to do is drive and enjoy driving this is the car the mercedes-amg cla-45s comes in at a whisker under 61 000 pounds yikes but for that you do get a turbocharged 2-liter four-cylinder engine that delivers a remarkable 415 brake horsepower and 369 pounds for the torque that means not 62 miles an hour in just four seconds and a top speed of 168 miles an hour so welcome to the inside of the mercedes cla afg a45 mercedes amg class whatever it's it's the mercedes and i like it in here it's pretty nice it's not the latest generation of mercedes interior in fact and for some in some respects i think it's it's better for it i get a very good driving position very straight really figure-hugging seats which is nice and it's a really pleasant dash layout with these vents that sort of look like sort of turbine blades i think they're really they're really cool but most significantly when it comes to being inside it it gets a slightly previous generation infotainment system it does rattle a bit i don't know if you're going to hear that which means i get a touch screen there but it's also controllable by a touch pad on here which i've got something to rest my wrist on and i can also control it via a little swipey thing on here and the rest of the steering wheel has proper buttons it's actually very sensible very easy to use you can set up these little shortcuts down here on the steering wheel to do different things so for example i can have a shortcut dynamic mode stability off exhaust allowed or as i prefer to keep it in manual gearbox and then this other one controls the dampers but i tend to leave those in comfort but i will come to in a moment and so to the performance this is the most powerful car here it's the only one with a power figure that starts with a with a four it's got a very height specific output four cylinder engine because amg is all about engines as you'll know so 38 miles an hour second gear takes it to almost 60 takes about 50 55 something like that it's a very high rating it's not the world's most sonorous four-cylinder but it's not a bad sound but as you'll know as with most cars performance cars they're too fast for the road so actually you can't be in the upper echelons of the rev range in third fourth fifth whatever so what i tend to do and the engine responses is nice around around those areas is be sort of through the mid-range in third fourth fifth and then between sort of 40 and 60 miles an hour which is the type of driving speed that's where it sits it it thrums along quite nicely and also it doesn't trouble the gearbox too much because you're not always asking for rapid gear shifts and this box it's not the world's quickest and smoothest and as you may have heard when i changed up from second let's just try that again if i go up to the to towards the top of the red line took quite a long time to go from one to the other so the gearbox is not its strong point but the engine response is good and the sound is quite zingy and responsive and it's just i mean it's quick no denying in this company it's a fast car and when it comes to the ride and handling what i like it i like it it's quite firm it it lacks some of the suppleness that you'd get in other cars in this class it is it is it is pretty pretty stiff for the road in the uk particularly you might as well put the dampers in their comfort mode they also have a sport mode which actually is is is fine it doesn't make the ride too much harsher there's a sport plus and i think you'd reserve that for the racetrack really it's that becomes really sort of pattery and brittle but in comfort it gives the wheels a little bit of movement a little bit of breath but body control is really tight lean is limited dive is limited steering i like very much it's got a really nice buildup of weight just off straight ahead it feels really keyed in and turning it's not unlike and i mean this as a as a compliment it's not unlike a sort of porsche 911 racket in that it's in that it's it just takes up weight really nicely it's super accurate and linear it's very very good the handling balance tends towards sort of the front first it feels it feels like it goes up to the limit of adhesion to the front first and then it starts to worry about the back uh by applying power that that that way it doesn't feel like a four wheel drive system that's 50 50 or inherently rear biased it's very much a sort of front led car with the stability and security pushed in from the rear when it when it needs it all in all it's actually quite a good car it's an entertaining car it's a good guy it's a really really capable car quite a lot of time for it whether it's quite as finessed i think in terms of ride and handling balance because the others well that i'm not quite so convinced about but driven in isolation it's a really good thing okay so where does that leave us well in many respects he pays you money and he makes your choice the bmw where we loved it's snarling straight six his performance its driver engagement and its ability to perform as a mini gt car with the mercedes it's the blistering performance and the staggering cross-country pace that really impresses even if it is a little hardcore for day-to-day use but ultimately if you're looking for the ultimate sports coupe the one that gets your heart racing the fastest the one that you want to grab the keys to and take for a driver any time of day or night well it has to be the porsche cayman which is so wonderful to drive you're even willing to forgive it that farty flat 4 engine and don't forget if you like this video hit like subscribe and smash that notifications button so you never miss another auto carving\n"