German Car Zone

Mercedes' all-new E-class has a tough job on its hands. Throughout the '60s, '70s and '80s Mercedes dominated the medium-sized executive saloon market with cars like the W123 and W124. Cars so tough that you regularly still see them working hard for a living around the world. But then build quality disappeared, the styling became bland and the magic faded. This car aims to redress that balance.

So what’s on offer with the new 2009 E-class?

As you’d expect, there are petrols and diesels, 4cyl, 6cyl and V8 configurations, but – rather surprisingly – several opportunities to have a six-speed manual transmission instead of the more likely automatics.

Propping up the range are two petrols, both using the same direct injection 1.8-litre turbo four but in a different state of tune. There’s an E320 CDI with the big six-cylinder diesel, an E350 with a petrol V6 and an E500 with a big petrol V8. We’ll deal with them in another article, but for now let's concentrate on the three four-cylinder diesels that most cars sold in the UK will come with. The E200 CDI has 136bhp, the E220 CDI gets 170bhp/295lb ft and the E250 CDI gets 204bhp/368lb ft. All three deliver 53mpg and 139g/km – really very impressive figures for such a big car.

What about trim? I was always a bit confused between Avantgarde and Elegance...

Luckily for you Merc UK has decided not to take the Elegance model and the base car is no longer called Classic but SE, to make middling reps feel better about themselves. It gets standard 16in rims, heated leather-look (yes plastic) seats and climate control. Pay an additional £2495 to step up to Avantgarde and you get bigger wheels, real leather, LED tail lights and Merc’s clever adaptive headlights that always ensure as much of the road is illuminated as possible. And another £1500 on top of that buys the Sport model: sports seats, AMG bodykit, 18in rims and steering wheel.


Full Story: CAR MAGAZINE - Mercedes E250 CDI


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