The crystal structure of the Sb,F, I salt of the 2-phenyladamant-2-yl cation, 1. Sb,F, ,, was determined at I83 K (P2,/c, R1 = 0.0652, u(C-C) = 0.02 A), because earlier published results indicated a charge delocalization from the cationic C(2) into the u framework (C-C hyperconjugation) and a bending of the C(2) bridge. In the structure of 1, a displacement of the C(2) bridge by 7.8(12)0 from the symmetrical position and C-C bond-length deviations from expectation values were found which are in agreement with preferential C-C hyperconjugation on one face of C(2). The interactions of 1 with two Sb2F, I counterions nearest to C(2) also indicate different behaviour of the two faces of C(2). The benzylic resonance in 1 is confirmed.The 2-phenyladamant-2-yl cation (1; Scheme I ) was investigated for the first time by Olah et al. [l] in 1974. The methyl-substituted cation 2 had already been prepared by Whitlock and Siefken [2] in 1968, and Schleyer and coworkers [3] examined several polymethyl-substituted adamant-2-yl cations. The parent ion 3 could not be prepared up to now due to its fast rearrangement to the adamant-1-yl cation.
BIn recent years, adamant-2-yl cations and adamantanones attracted much attention (mainly by the groups of Sorensen [4] and le Noble [5]) due to their structural relationship to cyclohexyl cations and cyclohexanones, which were intensively investigated, because the nucleophilic attack on such substituted systems leads to diastereoisomeric products. Sorensen and coworkers concluded from NMR studies [4b] of 1,2, and other adamant-2-yl cations and ab initio studies [4c] of 3 that the cationic C(2) is not planar, and that the C(2) bridge in adamant-2-yl cations is displaced from the symmetrical position and rapidly moves back and forth in a double-minimum potential (equilibration between A and B; see Scheme I ) . Hyperconjugation with the C(l)-C(9) and C(3)-C(4) bonds (A) or with the C(l)-C(8) and C(3)-C(10) bonds (B) was considered as the reason for this behaviour. We wish to report here the results of the first crystal-structure analysis of an