Colour me purple, Mercedes-Benz shakes its tail-feather
BY ALEXANDER CORNE | 23rd May 2000
Gone is the square, flat, conservative family look of the boxy 1990s cars and in the rush to lure new buyers - many more of them women - Benz has replaced edges with curves.
More brazenly, the colour chart now sports a deep purple exterior paint as well as metallic gold to join the ever popular Brilliant silver, the choice of more than 36 per cent of all Benz buyers.
The snazzy styling is expected to lure more buyers who previously would not consider the sober Benz, buyers for whom flash and dash, sharp steering and handling were the prime motivators.
A sharply drooping bonnet and extra-fast windscreen line set up the impression this is a more agile, sportier car.
The melted-cheese look of the twin headlamps continues the rather mixed Mercedes family front-end appearance, though the car becomes instantly recognisable on the road. The sexier shape blitzes the crate-like old C-class into oblivion.
With a firmer sports suspension package available across every model trim and engine option, Benz is telegraphing its intentions to BMW: it wants more and more drivers to consider the C-class a genuine 3 Series alternative.
So the gloves are off. And wading into the ring later this year will be the new Jaguar X400, another junior luxury car with sporting pretensions and four-wheel drive (something the C-class lacks at present but may offer later). Not to be forgotten from this mix is the Lexus IS200.
While the famous Benz three-pointed "gunsights" still adorn the snout, the rest of the front has been modernised. So too the flanks, more crisply drawn than before with a rising waistline and enhanced tail-lights of S-class proportions.
Though Benz designers and marketing people protest (perhaps too much), the C-class can be nothing other than a smaller S-class. And what would be wrong with that? Perhaps the weakest styling point is the rear end treatment. The large triangular lamps squeeze the proportions of the boot lid and make the tail look high and narrow.
The short boot does not help and the rear view is not as unmistakably Benz as before. In fact, it could be mistaken for many other lesser cars at a quick glance.
But these are minor quibbles given the driving experience.
Anyone familiar with the old C-class will be pleasantly surprised by the added on-road poise of the new C-class.
The main improvements are sharper steering, better handling and bigger brakes.
The chassis has been fundamentally overhauled with a new front suspension boasting MacPherson struts for the first time, rack and pinion steering and a retuned five-link rear axle.
The brakes are bigger than before, significantly so in the five-cylinder and V6 models and use ventilated discs at the front and solid discs at the back. Mercedes-Benz's Brake Assist helps stop the car more quickly under emergency situations.
Backing up the new driving experience is an all-new interior crammed with state-of-the-art technology, much of it borrowed from the S-class launched in 1998.
The interior benefits from an S-class style instrument dash while the centre console is still rather upright, flat and formal.
Adorned with wood or textured aluminium strip, the console and door tops are tastefully decorated while the dash top is finished in a contrasting hue to the door trims and lower dash panel.
On up-spec models the traditional electric seat and steering wheel adjusters crowd the driver's door panel, muscling up to the four fast glass switches and the relocated electronic boot release button.
The doors also house side airbags while the front bags are dual-stage inflation types that pop out at different speeds, depending on the severity of the accident.
The seats are large and comfy, as you would expect, (though on the hard side of firm at first touch), and in the rear there is sufficient legroom once you have clambered in. Rear headroom is more than adequate and up front it is generous.
Rear passengers may find foot room under the front seats at a premium and swinging their feet out through the doorway takes some care and effort, given the height of the sill and the narrowness of the aperture Behind the wheel, which is of a new, smaller and chunkier design, the electronic dash panel contains a dominant LED rectangle which displays various levels of information concerning the car's health.
There are buttons mounted on the multi-function steering wheel to scroll through the various screens.
The familiar stand-alone Benz instrument cluster with its super-legible circular dials is consigned to history in the wake of the S-class inspired electronic item.
The result is a large speedo (marked to 260 km/h even on diesels) that has a half concealed orange pointer, a rev counter tucked away into the far-left corner and a fuel gauge set in the right-hand corner.
Gone are the analogue oil and water temperature gauges, as well as the clock. Those functions are now displayed digitally in the central information panel. It is available on a need to know basis and in normal driving, you just do not need to know.
The upper reaches of the spec list of V6-powered C-class sedans allows access to the fine but complicated to grasp "Command" information and entertainment system.
This highly complex hi-fidelity system combines radio, CD and tape players, television, telephone with voice- operated instruction, sat nav and vehicle systems information update display. The radio can also be manipulated verbally using the Linguatronic system first shown in the S-class.
Below the Command module is a choice of semi-automatic or fully automatic climate control systems, depending on the depth of your pocket, though Mercedes-Benz Australia suggests it is fighting tooth and nail to win the fully automatic climate control system as standard even on base model cars.
The glovebox is three times as big as before and in CD player-equipped cars has a bulky six-stacker loaded into the upper half of the box. This rubs up against a telephone book-sized vehicle handbook as well as leaving a cubby below with more space than the previous car had.
Some of the plastics used in the interior feel a little hard and cheap, considering the Benz badge on the bonnet usually means the world's best.
The range kicks off with the 2.0-litre, four-cylinder, 95kW/190Nm, C180 model followed by the C200K, the supercharged four-cylinder motor just included in the SLK sportscar line-up.
The bigger base engine is no doubt offered as a sop to the increased weight of the base car. The head of safety engineering at Benz says that a 10-12 per cent weight gain was inevitable in order to meet safety standards.
Although the 200K engine provides a suitably brisk blast of acceleration, it is not going to worry WRX drivers.
It is a pretty hard worker and when pressing on lets you know it is under the hammer. It is noisy but nice and obviously aimed at the sportier end of the C-class buying family, most of whom probably enjoy hearing the motor at work.
At low speeds the supercharged 120kW/230Nm engine performs adequately but given a fuller serve of throttle things start to get more interesting. This is the sportiest feeling Benz, and one with enough grunt to see off even the best-driven BMW 318i.
The C200K is available with a six-speed manual or a five-speed tip-shift automatic that allows you to make manual sequential up or downshifts when chasing up your favourite piece of challenging black top.
The gearbox defines the term seamless transmission and reacted to prompts from the driver with some vigour.
It is just a shame there are no buttons on the steering wheel as well.
The only taste we had of the six-speed box was when mated to the C270 CDI turbo-diesel.
In this form the box allowed full use of the stupendous reserves of torque possessed by the five-cylinder engine.
The change quality was reasonable considering the flywheel forces, though the clutch pedal felt a little soft. The accelerator pedal is lighter and smoother than ever.
The gear-change quality was pretty slick with a longish throw to the lever and wide spacing of slots between ratios so you do not hook sixth when you wanted fourth.
The use of a six-speed box means five accelerative speeds and top, which is a cruiser for making the most of the torque and minimising fuel consumption in autobahn driving.
Benz has finally binned the worm and roller steering system that deprived former C-class drivers of feel and sharpness. The new rack and pinion system is far sharper and feels more natural, and will undoubtedly be appreciated by keener drivers.
As ever, the ride quality is up to the best Mercedes standards, Benz tweaking the rear five-link system and opting for MacPherson struts up front rather than the double wishbones of the previous cars.
The struts may have been adopted to better handle the weight of some of the other engines, such as the 270 CDI and the V6 C320, but the addition of strut towers in the under-bonnet area may also provide more controllable deformation and crash energy absorption.
It is as if Benz engineers have finally bowed to conventional wisdom, strut front-end and rack and pinion steering together for the first time in one of their small cars, and saving nine kilograms in the process. Who would have thought it? Thankfully, the results are every bit as good as they should be, faithful steering and a mildly understeering front end.
Coupled with electronic traction stability control, the car proves to be relatively benign to drive at speeds most would find bordering on unreasonable.
In the 125kW/370Nm, 2.7-litre, C270 CDI turbo-diesel you sit ahead of a five-cylinder powerplant with the grunt of a bigger V8 petrol engine but with the thirst of a tiny four-cylinder. European fuel consumption figures suggest an average of 6.9 litres per 100km.
One of the penalties is a heavier nose that must have consequences for cornering. The weight balance shifts to the front, but the car still corners flat, if a little wider. The CDI is 85kg heavier than the C200K overall.
Australians typically do not favour luxury diesels but if the sales staff do their stuff a test drive should have most convinced the CDI is the way to go for mountains of torque.
The engine seduces with a mix of effortless acceleration and better noise isolation from the rattly idle which besmirches the same installation in the E-class.
There is a great deal of under-floor insulation in the C-class and the driving environment (with the possible exception of the sportier C200 Kompressor) is extremely soothing.
Overall, the new C-class is actually quite interesting to drive. The woodeness has gone and the supple chassis, refined ride and impressive handling conspire to raise the C-class above many of its peers.
It is still not fun as such, but the stiffness and sobriety of the previous car has been replaced by something significantly more dynamic.
Whether this has been driven by a desire to knock off BMW or simply a realisation that younger buyers were not interested in a car as bland as the previous C180 is debatable.
The upshot is that the new C-class can be legitimately described as a driver's car, if not an enthusiast's car.