Mr.Shelby Posted December 11, 2021 Posted December 11, 2021 https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/features/sticking-conventions-mercedes-c-class-vs-saloon-rivals EVs may be the future, but the fossil-fuelled compact executive still matters. We pitch the latest C-Class against the BMW and Jaguar alternatives The brochure for the new fifth-generation Mercedes-Benz C-Class would, in places, be better promotional material for oversized sunglasses and expensive sandals than it is for a car. You will know the score: it’s full of pouting young models in designer clothes arranged around a car in which they have an apparently disdainful level of disinterest. In this case, one of them is actually sitting on the roof of a grey C-Class Estate wearing a black trench coat, black leather boots and Grace Jones-style ‘eyewear’. As ironic as this might sound in light of our current throwback fashion trends, I’m pretty confident that nobody who dressed anything like that ever advertised the 190E in 1982. The young lady in question is picnicking with what appears to be the shiniest cocktail shaker in the known universe and clutching a massive pretzel almost as if it were a steering wheel. And she just happens to have chosen to do all that on the roof of her C-Class. Frankly, it’s beyond my powers of parody. NEXT New 2023 Mini 3-door Hatch Next SHARE STORY NEWS by Matt Saunders 10 mins read 11 December 2021 The brochure for the new fifth-generation Mercedes-Benz C-Class would, in places, be better promotional material for oversized sunglasses and expensive sandals than it is for a car. You will know the score: it’s full of pouting young models in designer clothes arranged around a car in which they have an apparently disdainful level of disinterest. In this case, one of them is actually sitting on the roof of a grey C-Class Estate wearing a black trench coat, black leather boots and Grace Jones-style ‘eyewear’. As ironic as this might sound in light of our current throwback fashion trends, I’m pretty confident that nobody who dressed anything like that ever advertised the 190E in 1982. ADVERTISEMENT The young lady in question is picnicking with what appears to be the shiniest cocktail shaker in the known universe and clutching a massive pretzel almost as if it were a steering wheel. And she just happens to have chosen to do all that on the roof of her C-Class. Frankly, it’s beyond my powers of parody. Much as she might look a bit like a person to whom Mercedes would want to sell a C-Class, however, this person isn’t anything like the one who will actually buy one. Mercedes wants to use technology, fully networked connectivity and very daft brochure photography to bring younger customers into the fold. I get it. Honestly, though, it seems to me that they’re burying the lead. The most valuable and marketable commodity that this car has right now, which twenty-something models in expensive-looking accessories do absolutely nothing to speak to, must surely be reassurance. In these times in which we find ourselves, fully electric family cars of comparable prices not only exist but are being made more financially appealing, both to buy and to run, than their piston-engined counterparts. And when those EV alternatives are almost universally saluted by governments and the various courts of public opinion alike as the virtuous future of personal transport, surely the people who will buy this car – a conventional, albeit mildly hybridised, piston-engined compact executive saloon from the car maker with the longest ‘legacy’ in the business – will do so simply because they know it will work. Whatever their daily life might throw at them or wherever it might lead, they know that a familiar, combustion-powered C-Class will cope. They know it will soak up the challenges, strains and stresses of the everyday, soothe away the miles and surround them all in a comforting, luxury techno-glow while doing it. Mercedes is just that kind of brand. So how far might that sense of reassurance, allied to a revised platform, a new look and a cabin packed with S-Class-inspired infotainment technology, take the new C-Class when judged alongside its keenest competitors? That’s our departure point for today, and to help provide some answers is a car you might expect and one you might not. Directly opposite Stuttgart’s new 197bhp, four-cylinder diesel-powered C220d AMG Line Premium is our compact executive class leader, the BMW 320d M Sport. But there’s also a Jaguar XF D200 R-Dynamic S – a British-built executive option which, given that it technically belongs in the class above the Mercedes and BMW, you might expect to cost more than either. However, at showroom list price at least, it now actually costs less. A workaday diesel-engined 3 Series has long been more than a match for an equivalent C-Class for driver appeal, but is it still? Even if it is, might the new Mercedes be able to claw back a result for its brand-typical qualities of refinement, comfort, drivability and luxury appeal? Or will the German saloons be shaded by the updated XF, which brings levels of accommodation and sophistication from the class above and aims to combine them with Jaguar’s trademark supple, surface-sensitive ride and handling allure? Let’s put down the pretzel, holster the shiny cocktail shaker and find out.There’s something a little bland about the way Mercedes’ design is currently going. But given the ignominious criticism that has wedgy boldness and visual cut and thrust to make them stand out. This one looks, to these eyes at least, like another slightly amorphous copy.Take the 320d by way of contrast. Granted, if you have one in M Sport Pro Pack specification, like our car, it will come with that awful black kidney grille, which looks like it has been tacked on (or maybe just shaded in with the paint bucket tool in Photoshop). I would certainly be keen to find out from my dealer how much of the contents of the Pro Pack could be ordered independently of that ‘extended shadowline’ grille. That apart, though, it manages to look like both a BMW and a 3 Series, and that, it seems to me, is the trick that the C-Class is missing.
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