Porsche 718 vs Mercedes-Benz E-Class

What's the difference?

The 718 Cayman Style Edition only costs a bit more than the entry-grade Cayman it's based on, but opens up more special colours and contrasting features from the wheels to decals, even leather upholstery. The value is good, the look is enhanced and the car remains superb to drive on the right roads.

Living with a Cayman daily is ‘do-able’ but you’ll have to be understanding given it's not the most user-friendly car to drive, and then there’s the low-level safety tech.

But in return, you’ll own one of the best and relatively affordable prestige sports cars ever made and one of the last of the combustion-powered Porsche Caymans.

The E-Class is stacked with kit, looks great, and is an effective and comfortable way to get around in built-up areas or across the countryside.

While it’s not the most dynamically engaging - it’s pipped by its Bavarian rival there - it offers more comfort-oriented features than most, and the cabin is a pleasant place to spend a day driving.

If you're disposed towards stumping up the asking price, the extra outlay for the 'Plus Package' will probably be most relevant to you if you’re covering long distances due to the Airmatic suspension.

Otherwise, even a simple-spec E300 provides a step up from what you might expect from an executive sedan.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with accommodation and meals provided.

The 718 Cayman is often labelled as the 'junior 911' but that downplays its status as an outstanding sports car in its own right.

It’s not a smaller version of the 911, at all, but it is smaller than a 911. Not by much, though. The Cayman is 140mm shorter in length than the 911 at 4379mm end-to-end. Interestingly, the Cayman has a longer wheelbase at 2475mm and is taller at 1295mm.

The 718 Cayman is beginning to date in its design with this generation of the sports car arriving eight years ago. From the outside it’s holding up well in terms of styling , but inside it feels very 2016 with the small media screen and analogue dials.

It gives me a weird nostalgic feeling I normally only get driving older cars, but in a current model. Which could be why Porsche is jazzing the Cayman up with this Style Edition.

The Style Edition enhances the look of the entry-grade Cayman with 20-inch 718 'Spyder' wheels in a high gloss black or white finish, and there’s a choice of six special colours ranging from the Crayon hue our car wore to 'Ruby Star Neo', 'Shark Blue', 'Carmine Red' and 'Arctic Grey'.

The Style Edition also adds black sport tailpipes, full-colour Porsche crests on the wheel hub covers, a black leather interior with contrasting Crayon stitching, Porsche crest embossed headrests, illuminated door sills and floor mats with Crayon contrast stitching.  

Buyers can also choose a 'Contrast Package' in black or white which adds Porsche lettering to the side of the car and a strip to the bonnet.

Evolution rather than revolution is obvious when it comes to the E-Class’ styling, but that’s in Mercedes’ best interests, because it’s still a good-looking thing, and being a bit subtle is warranted in the executive sedan game.

The biggest changes come in the headlights and tail-lights. Up-front there are now more than one million pixels in the LED headlights, which have adaptive high beam as standard and are more connected to the grille via black trim, as has been seen in EQ electric models.

Underneath, the bumper now features an AMG-style 'A-wing' apron as part of the 'AMG Line' exterior package as standard. A set of 20-inch AMG alloys are also included.

To the rear, and the digital tail-lights feature a Mercedes-Benz star motif, making its lighting signature now more recognisable from behind.

The German Rainbow is well-represented with mostly shades of grey, black, or white available, though 'Verde Silver Metallic' is a slightly retro green, and 'Nautic Blue Metallic' is a subtle and classy tone.

The daring ‘Manufaktur’ shade of 'Patagonia Red Metallic' is a $2500 option, as is 'Opalite White Bright' while 'Alpine Grey Solid' is $2900.

The 718 Cayman doesn’t have back seats -  it's a two-seater sports car. Cabin storage is almost non-existent but is saved by a glove box and pull-out door pockets which are bigger than they look.

Surprisingly, there are three cupholders - two which pop out of the dashboard above the glove box and another in the small centre console bin.

Cargo space isn’t bad for a two-seater sports car with 184-litre rear boot and a front boot with a 150-litre capacity. That’s roughly one nine-year old child as you can see from the photos. My son wanted to sit in there, which I agreed to, but I said no when he asked me to shut the bonnet.

Inside, the E-Class should feel familiar to anyone who’s spent time in a recent Benz, though the Superscreen might be the main point of difference. It’s an immediately comfortable place, though, with a relatively visually busy cabin.

The seats and their adjustability mean most drivers and passengers, regardless of height and size, should feel supported (and ideally relaxed), while touch-points are mostly either leather upholstery or digital screens.

The steering wheel, also seen in plenty of other Mercedes models, is a bit of a let-down, however, with its haptic touch pads on a slightly busy two-tier layout. This millennial found it irritating, surely too will the usually older E-Class buyer.

There are a few other small annoyances, one being that the MBUX Assistant sometimes won’t hear a command, or that not everything seems to be able to be controlled by it. The climate control vent positions are electrically adjustable to certain pre-sets through the menu, but the MBUX Assistant isn’t able to do this for you.

And while the driver display and central multimedia screen are fairly user-friendly, it’s not always immediately apparent what the quickest way to find some information or a setting is.

Our test car was fitted with the 'Plus Package', which means four-zone climate control available to the rear seats, which my 180cm-tall self found spacious with plenty of headroom, kneeroom, and even a fair bit of room under the driver’s seat.

Behind the rear seats, there’s a generous 540 litres of boot space, exactly the same capacity as the previous generation E-Class.

While cross-shopping the E-Class and a BMW 5 Series would normally be relatively easy, the Merc’s $131,500 starting price, before on-road costs, puts it plenty north of the base 520i, the only petrol one available, at $114,900. The electric i5 eDrive40 starts from $155,900, more than $20K over the Mercedes.

But the E-Class is stacked with features as standard, and while there are a couple of option packs, Mercedes Australia has tried to streamline the most popular features and specifications into the E300.

Its $131,500 price gets you a tech-heavy sedan with Merc’s latest 'MBUX' system housed in a visually impressive, if perhaps unnecessary, 'Superscreen' dash.

The dual-screen set-up incorporates a main 14.4-inch central multimedia touchscreen and a 12.3-inch display for the passenger, allowing the driver to keep, for example, a map visible while a passenger sorts out media or comfort settings.

The system is also designed to avoid taking users through sub-menus, though can be bypassed by wireless Android Auto or Apple CarPlay.

It also features a selfie camera mounted to the dash, which is disabled for the Australian market at present. Mercedes-Benz Australia hopes to change this soon.

Mercedes also plans to allow the MBUX system to learn what settings and functions will be most useful to the driver under certain conditions, but currently users are able to manually create so-called ‘Routines’ such as setting the climate control and seats to warm up if it’s below a certain temperature, and can even adjust the ambient lighting to a warmer colour.

More automation comes in the brand’s MBUX ‘Hey Mercedes’ system, which can now respond to commands without the driver needing to say “Hey Mercedes”. 

Heated and vented front seats, leather upholstery, wireless phone charging, and a 17-speaker Burmester sound system with Dolby Atmos 4D sound are also standard - the latter being a clever feature that positions different elements of the audio, usually music, to give a 360-degree feeling, as well as turning bassier tones into a physical vibration via “tactile transducers” in each front seat’s backrest. Good for bassline junkies, then (apologies to Mr. Rascal).

With the $9400 'Plus Package', the E-Class also comes with 'Airmatic' suspension and rear-axle steering (which I’ll touch more on later), power-closing doors, 'Urban Guard' to monitor your vehicle while it’s parked, an illuminated grille up front, a more capable version of the MBUX 'Interior Assistant', four-zone climate control and Mercedes’ 'Digital Light' function, which uses the more-than one-million pixels in the headlights to project onto the road or surface in front of you when turning the car off or in driving situations to alert road users of potential danger.

A $6200 'Energising Package' adds multicontour front seats with comfort headrests, upgraded climate controls with 'Air-Balance' and fragrances, upgraded seat heating with armrest heating for the front occupants and heated seats for the rear.

So, under the bonnet of a Cayman is the front boot, but if it’s the engine you’re after you’ll need to go through the rear hatch because this is a mid-engined car.

Getting to the engine means removing several fixtures and covers which begins to feel like you’re dissembling the vehicle and comes with a rising anxiety that it all won’t go back together.

But it all clicks back in. It’s just a slow and tedious process. Fortunately, oil and water can be added by removing the circular covers you can see in the images. 

Under the layers of covers, deep down just in front of the rear axle, is the Cayman’s 2.0-litre ‘flat’ four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine which makes 220kW and 380Nm. A seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission sends drive to the rear wheels. 

It’s not a huge amount of power but the Cayman only weighs 1365kg and so can get from 0-100km/h in 5.1 seconds. Not brutally quick but the way this car handles is what you’ll like.  

Oh, and just to be clear, the Style Edition doesn’t bring any extra power or engine changes. The outputs and performance are the same as the entry-grade Cayman.

This lone E-Class variant is powered by a turbocharged 2.0-litre engine pumping out 190kW and 400Nm, assisted by a 48-volt battery system. Under EQ boost, an extra 17kW and 205Nm is available for a short time.

It’s hooked up to a nine-speed auto that drives the rear wheels, and it’s all pretty traditional… for 2024, that is.

Mercedes says the E300 is able to hit 100km/h in a respectable 6.3 seconds.

Porsche says that after a combination of open and urban roads the Cayman’s fuel consumption should be 7.0L/100km. My 143km fuel test, taking in country roads and school runs, used 21.8L of petrol and equates to 15.2L/100km. Which means I had about twice as much fun as Porsche did when it recorded its fuel consumption.

The 64-litre tanks means in theory you should be able to travel 914km between fills if you’re conservative with fuel.

Mercedes claims the E-Class drinks 7.2L/100km on the combined cycle, and though we weren’t able to test that properly at the pump on the launch program, the trip computer showed up to 9.4L/100km after some quite spirited driving, which gradually averaged out to about 8.6L/100km in the afternoon once some more calm, E-Class-appropriate distance had been covered.

With its 50L fuel tank, the E-Class should theoretically be able to cover 694km on a single tank if the 7.2L/100km is achieved, though realistically it would be much less, 550-600km depending on driving style.

The 718 Cayman Style Edition doesn’t come with any performance advantages over the already brilliant entry-grade Cayman it’s based on. And it is brilliant to drive. Several big steps above Audi’s TT, Nissan's Z or Toyota and BMW’s Supra/Z4 'twins under the skin' in terms of handling, steering and engagement. 

That said, the Cayman isn’t as easy to drive as any of those cars. The steering is heavy, the accelerator is stiff, the dual-clutch auto transmission feels a bit rough and the turbo lags, then sends in the mumbo a bit too fast and too late. Oh, and and the seats are a tad tight.

But I can overlook all of this because on good winding country roads the Cayman feels like a water drop running down a wall, moving naturally and harmoniously around whatever it encounters.

The day-to-day school runs and grocery getting isn’t quite as poetic, and a Cayman proves challenging in the real world over potholes and in supermarket car parks. You’d have to love the Cayman for better or worse, as many do, to live with it daily. If you can't, there's the Audi TT.

While the E-Class has taken fairly sizeable steps in terms of its tech, it remains a fairly traditional car from behind the wheel, save for a few small changes like its mild-hybrid system and rear-wheel steering.

It’s still a petrol-powered rear-drive sedan, and it feels built more for eating up highway kilometres than it does tackling twisty turns. But that’s okay, because it will still do the latter.

Comfort is the main focus, clearly, for the E300, and the big Merc does it well. We weren’t offered a car without Airmatic air suspension on the launch, but the E-Class doesn’t seem like it would be particularly rough without it.

With it, however, large bumps and minor road annoyances only make their way into the cabin in the sense that you’re aware of them, but not bothered by them.

That slight dulling of feedback does extend to the steering wheel however, where, despite the rear-wheel steering making the car more nimble, the feedback to the driver is less encouraging of eager driving. 

While 190kW on paper doesn’t seem like enough, the E-Class makes do with its meagre engine quite well - and even though it can seem like it’s working a bit too hard at times, the E-Class’ natural state isn’t responding to a planted foot, so it’s unlikely to be a daily bother.

Engine noise, as well as wind and road noise are suitably dulled by the E300’s NVH fitout, too.

The tuning of its drive modes, in particular Comfort and Sport, seemed well-judged on our drive loop, with the option to set the 'Individual' mode to a custom configuration, most elements in Comfort while the drivetrain is set to Sport is particularly helpful when on gentle, high-speed country roads.

If you do start to approach the limits of the big sedan’s capability, it’ll let you know fairly early on. The heavy E-Class isn’t prone to sudden lurching or poor handling, and isn’t much phased by mid-corner bumps.

It’s not as dynamically engaging as some rivals, particularly the 5 Series, but it does appear to be a better provider of cross-country comfort.

ANCAP hasn’t had a go at crash-testing the E-Class yet, and it might not given the relatively small number that will be sold here compared to volume models, but Mercedes’ track record with safety is pretty stellar, and it’s extremely rare for a Mercedes to not cop the maximum five stars.

In the new E300 there are 11 airbags - plenty for a sedan. Mercedes lists front airbags, knee bags and pelvic/thorax airbags for the driver and front passenger, side bags for the rear and a front centre airbag.

It also comes with a fairly extensive suite of safety tech, including the usual ABS, lane-keep assist, blind spot monitoring and surround-view parking cameras.

But on top of that, there’s also ‘Evasive Steering Assist’, semi-automated cruise control with sign recognition, distance assist for following leading vehicles and can even project light arrows onto the road if leaving your lane, when 'Digital Lights' are optioned.

The E-Class also has a function if an imminent collision is detected in which it can, depending on the type of collision, take occupant protection measures. In the case of a side-on collision, the E-Class can “move an affected front occupant towards the centre of the car” before impact.

The Cayman Style Edition is covered by a three-year/unlimited kilometre warranty and servicing is needed every 12 months or 20,000km.

With Porsche, final service costs are determined at the dealer level (in line with variable labour rates by state/territory).

We'd like to see the warranty coverage increased to five years/unlimited kilometres which will bring it in line with more mainstream brands.

The E-Class comes with Mercedes’ fairly industry standard five-year, unlimited kilometre warranty, though Mercedes-Benz Australia was unable to confirm exact servicing pricing on the launch. 

It does however list pricing for the E-Class on its website for a three-service pack at $3325, four at $4535, and five at $6800, the latter averaging out to $1360 each.

This could increase with the new generation car, and Mercedes doesn’t list estimated serving pricing for new E-Classes yet in its booking system (I checked with one of the test cars).

Servicing intervals are every 12 months or 25,000km, whichever comes first.