Remember these? Yeah, I tried not to either. Way back in the year 2001, Mercedes-Benz had their “cut off half their hair and dye it purple” moment when they came out with a really odd C-Class coupe. Converting the sedan to a coupe, which in reality is a hatchback, costs the car 7.3 inches of overall length – but in reality you lost much more. The W203 was a hot piece of plastic garbage to begin with, and somehow Mercedes made it cheaper by finding $5,000 to cut off the price. Base price was under $26,000, and to put that into perspective, was just $2,000 more than an Acura RSX Type-S. These were clearly targeted towards the younger, more impressionable buyers, and the crazy thing is that it somewhat worked. Yes.
Mercedes-Benz claimed that 40% of these buyers opted for another Mercedes-Benz product after owning their Sport Coupé. That sounds great, but I have to wonder if a large percentage of those owners did so because the Sport Coupé was so bad and they had to get out of that thing and into something nicer. I’m not kidding.
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2003 Mercedes-Benz C230 Kompressor Sport Coupé on eBay
Year: 2003
Model: C230 Kompressor Sport Coupé
VIN: WDBRN40J63A421422
Engine: Supercharged 1.8 liter inline-4
Transmission: 5-speed automatic
Mileage: 59,812 mi
Location: Brooklyn, New York
Price: $9,900 Buy It Now
“GORGEOUS 2003 MERCEDES C230 KOMPRESSOR COUPE WITH ONLY 59812 ORIGINAL MILES. AMAZING SUPER CLEAN LOW-MILES BENZ, DRIVES BRAND NEW, HAS NO ANY ISSUES. 1-OWNER NON-SMOKER CAR, NEVER BEEN IN ANY ACCIDENT, ALWAYS GARAGE KEPT. HARD TO FIND COLLECTIBLE CONDITION KOMPRESSOR BENZ THOSE DAYS, DO NOT LOSE IT. CLEAN 1-OWNER CARFAX REPORT, PERFECT HIGH SCORE AUTOCHECK. WE FINANCE. ANY CREDIT. WE DO TRADES. WARRANTY. WE SHIP ALL OVER 48 STATES AND ANY WORLDWIDE PORT. (646)256-4246 ALEXâ€
Taking a look inside this thing, it isn’t exactly a posh place to be. Everything is vinyl or plastic, and they even opted for a cheaper steering wheel compared to the one that was standard in the W203 sedan. The example has just 60,000 miles but of course shows wear on the seat and sticky climate control buttons. Under the hood, the M271 produced 189 horsepower and 192 pound-feet, but that was only good 0-60 runs north of 8 seconds. Just to compare to that Acura RSX Type-S I mentioned, that is over 1.5 seconds slower. I know you are buying these for straight-line speed, but that is disappointing any way you look at it.
This one is priced at nearly $10,000, but that amount of money doesn’t buy you much in 2022. I can’t even really find recent sales on these because honestly, who is really hunting for one of these? I suppose if you really have a soft spot for one of these models then this is the one to get, but please, keep your expectations low.
– Andrew
I bought mine for $5k in good condition with a dead radio and 80k miles. I really like this as a project car and as a terrific vehicle for just driving around. I drove Audi’s for years and this reminds me of my early A4 or the old BMW 318, certainly not a high performance vehicle but fun.