![Rolls-Royce Corniche Classic & Sports Car – Don’t buy that, buy this: Rolls-Royce Corniche vs Mercedes-Benz 280SE 3.5 Coupé](/sites/default/files/styles/article/public/2018-08/rolls_corniche.png?itok=8oSjJWO5)
Mercedes-Benz is a marque that tends to encourage blind devotion.
I have owned and enjoyed probably dozens of them over the last 25 years, but I do not count myself among those who can see no wrong in these cars, or close my mind to the possibility that there are better, cheaper alternatives out there.
I have quite a few mates who are Benz-brainwashed, however, so I was surprised a few months ago when one in particular spotted a Rolls-Royce Mulliner Park Ward Coupé (like a Corniche but slightly earlier) gliding through the traffic near Hampton Court and suddenly, unprompted, piped up: “You know what, I can’t understand why those cars are so cheap compared to Merc 3.5 coupés…”
![“I’m not sure a more beautiful Mercedes has ever been built” Classic & Sports Car – Don’t buy that, buy this: Rolls-Royce Corniche vs Mercedes-Benz 280SE 3.5 Coupé](/sites/default/files/2018-08/classic_and_sports_car_mercedes-benz-220SE.png)
“I’m not sure a more beautiful Mercedes has ever been built”
The car in question was dark blue, immaculate, totally elegant and probably worth about £40,000, or less than half what a Mercedes-Benz W111 280SE 3.5 Coupé would command in the same condition.