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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Indulge/  E-Class: Back To The Future
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E-Class: Back To The Future

Mercedes-Benz had become the doddering old man in the luxury car market. So imagine everyone's surprise when the refreshed E-Class came out

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The small clock on the dashboard of the new Mercedes-Benz E-Class harks back to the past; after all, Mercedes-Benz is not just the oldest German car maker, it is the world’s oldest car maker. But everything else about this car feels delightfully new. It is new, yet it does have something vaguely comforting inside, particularly the three-pointed star on the steering wheel.

In the world of executive sedans being Old World is not always a good thing. In fact, Mercedes’s competitors, particularly Bavarian car makers Audi and BMW, had painted their northern rivals from Stuttgart as old and stodgy. An advertisement by Audi in the US had tried to cement that fact: Mercedes was suffering from the image of being the car your father drove. Worse, the E-Class was quickly being relegated to the car your grandfather drove.

In 1989, I sat down in my first Mercedes. This was the W115, made at a time before Mercedes and its rivals started naming car series. The 240D a school friend’s mother owned was the Mercedes with the rectangular upright headlights. This car brings back mixed memories, because while it started a fascination with large luxury cars, my friend tragically died a couple of years later.

Owning a Mercedes in Delhi in the 1980s was a sure sign that you had made it. The W123 sedan with its big headlights and three-pointed star on the hood was the car that wheeler-dealers in Delhi and Mumbai preferred. In an era still dominated by Ambassadors and Padminis and relatively empty roads, this car and its successor, the W124—the first car to actually wear the ‘E’ badge—became the ultimate power symbol in India. Only the President of India travelled in the bigger S-Class sedan.

But liberalization brought its own challenges. While Mercedes-Benz now assembled some of their cars at the Tata Motors plant in Pune, the W210 and W211 iterations faced competition from Mercedes’s German rivals. And they suffered. First BMW with the 5-Series and then Audi with the A6 relegated the E-Class to the sales background.

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This car looks stunning, the tapering nose with Mercedes’s signature gaping radiator grille has strong hints of the company’s new design language inspired by its flagship SLS sportscar. Mercedes had fallen behind the lights game, while Audi and then BMW had upped the ante with their headlight and taillight designs and had has clearly taken the lead over the competition.

The masculine looks, coupled with very aggressive lights, make you feel like you are walking into an alien craft as you walk towards it at night when all lights are blazing, which they do when you unlock the car. For now, at least, the new E-Class does stand out on that front.

While the interiors of all cars from any of the three aforementioned brands look like you have walked into the Starship Enterprise, the latest iteration of the Mercedes E-Class is the newest in the field and as such has a leg-up on the Audi A6 and the BMW 5-Series. The black leather and plastic are offset by a shiny, silvery, metallic strip down the centre of the console. No hints of faux wood anywhere here. The full keypad for phone calls and the simplified interface do help as well.

Behind the steering wheel, Mercedes has placed the central information unit in the middle of the speedometer, the dial being relegated to the edge. In fact, as far as instrument layout goes, the E-Class does seem to be more practical than the competition—not that the competition is bad. The double sun roof in the E250 CDI Launch Edition we tested was a nice touch, but in 40-degree heat and sharp sunlight, the idea of sun roofs in India remains suspect. That said, the air conditioning is powerful enough and quick enough to cool the car fast.

There is frankly not much to set this car aside from the competition when in comes to driving or even rear-seat comfort. In the crowded streets of India, you can’t really open the engine up. When you do get the chance, the turbocharged 2,143cc, 200-horsepower engine does seem to have the horses, but a race car this is not, no matter what the nose suggests. The suspension, while supple, is more attuned towards ride comfort, which takes out all but the worst potholes from the equation. Actually , the only way to take out the worst potholes and speedbumps requires a hovercraft.

This is not your father’s Mercedes; this is clearly a car that belongs to this generation, with its looks, lights and toys. This is a Mercedes that you will not mind showing of at the dinner party, a car that doesn’t make its owners look stodgy. Far from it, yet, at the same time, the white clock on the dash will remind your father’s Merc of old; it remains a car that he can drive as well.

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Published: 30 Aug 2013, 02:05 AM IST
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