Is Mercedes Overcharging for the C-Class?
I know many have been looking forward to the new Mercedes C-Class ever since it was announced. But one thing has been missing for a long while now: the price. The C-Class was always the entry-level Mercedes. A buyer could get to dip her/his toes in the Mercedes pool without needing to have old money, or newer more dubious money. It was the people’s Mercedes. Now, however, with the introduction of the CLA slotting into that position, the C-Class seems to be going the way of the former E-Class, meaning it’s heading north with its price.
The base price for a stripper C300 is $38,400, but because no one in the history of car buying ever actually gets the base-model stripper version, the likely starting price is closer to $42,000. The closer-to-the-top-of-the-line C-Class, the C400 4Matic, will set you back $48,590, and all of these don’t include destination or delivery. The C-Class is now in the range of what you used to pay for the E-Class, and that trend continues throughout the Mercedes lineup. Hopefully these price hikes don’t scare off potential buyers, especially considering all they are getting is a base C-Class.
There still isn’t any word on how much the AMG version is going to cost, but figure north of $70,000 just based on how much the normal Cs cost. The new AMG will likely use a detuned version of Mercedes’ brand-new 4.0 twin-turbo mill slated for the AMG GT sports car, and will probably debut later this year at one of the auto shows. But seriously, is Mercedes shooting itself in the foot by outpricing most buyers from its best seller?