I had a bit of a culture shock last week. For several days I had been driving my 1947 MG sports car, which, can you believe, has no sat-nav, no parking sensors, no cruise control, no ABS or traction control, and no airbags. It doesn't even have power steering, or for that matter, air-con, an MP3 player, or electric windows, or any windows, as it happens.
With not even the most modest of mod-cons, the only assistance comes from me: if I take a wrong line, don't allow sufficient braking distance, or mis-judge a parking space, there is nothing to blame bar yours truly, and I'm left to pick up the pieces.
And it was from this entirely handraulic example of motoring history that I jumped into the latest E-Class Mercedes-Benz in Avantgarde trim. In moments I morphed from a hands-on, seat-of-my-pants driver into a steering-wheel attendant ,cosseted and supervised by a huge variety of things labelled 'Assist'. Attention Assist, Lane-keeping Assist, Blind-spot Assist, Night-view Assist, High-beam Assist, Brake Assist - not to mention parking-space measurement, and visual and audible steering guidance. Add them all together, plus a few extras and trifles, and the asking price falls little short of £50,000.
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a huge variety of things labelled 'Assist' |
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If you consider that a lead-in E-Class is listed at around £26,000, almost twice that amount is a lot to pay for the occasional Assist. I mention that only to put the cost of modern-day mechatronics into perspective: the price of fail-safe driving doesn't come cheap.
But, of course, I was driving anything but a basic E-Class. The test car was the E 350 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY Avantgarde saloon, a near range-topping model stickered, sans extras, at £33,430. And for this you get any number of superlatives: comfort, ride-quality, performance, specification, handling, safety, and to a surprising extent - economy.
The 3.0-litre V6 diesel engine is capable of notable parsimony, despite its sportscar-like performance. A 0-62 time of just 6.8 seconds scarcely prepares you for a theoretical 50-something miles per gallon on the extra-urban cycle. Even the combined figure of 40.9 mpg deserves a ripple of applause, when you consider that this is a 155 mph car weighing almost two tonnes. The combined figure equates to a CO2 rating of 186 g/km, which just places it into VED Band J at £215 per annum. One gramme less, and owners would be saved £40.
Much of the economy can be attributed to two simple facts: lots of torque and plenty of gears. The V6 engine develops 540 Nm of torque at just 1600 rpm, and with seven speeds in the 7G-Tronic auto' transmission, this means that the engine remains almost constantly within its peak-torque envelope without depleting performance. Obviously, keeping down the revs improves fuel-consumption.
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