The Power and the Glory

Motor Vehicle Review: The Mercedes C180

I’m going to describe the experience of being inside this Mercedes. Once we’re on the highway, we quickly rocket ahead of other cars until they appear to be standing still. No wind tunnel. No engine whine. Just the silky whipping of the road under us. It comes as a surprise that we’re driving more than double the speed limit with no so much as a sigh from the engine.

Okay, first of all, there is a word to describe the interior: plush. The seats are warm and perforated, soft and comfy. There’s silver on the dashboard, and buttons on the steering wheel so you can adjust the volume and change music while you’re driving. The Mercedes Benz is such a sophisticated automobile that I tend to have an inferiority complex when I’m in one – meaning – the car just feels too good for the likes of me. This is why Mercedes, for me, is the rich, old man’s car.

I suppose when you have bags and bags of money lying around, throwing the bling into a Mercedes makes sense. It’s a safe car, it creates distance on the road between oneself and other drivers, and perhaps most important, it puts you in control of your driving destiny. What does that mean? Well, simply, that you have an awesome amount of power and control at your finger (and toe) tips.

I usually drive a 2.0i Chrysler Neon, so I thought this Mercedes would feel a bit like family. Well it does and it doesn’t. For starters, the interior feels like the Daimler Chrysler brand. But the engine is all German engineering. It’s a Kompressor, which, it should come as no surprise, it compresses the internal combustion processes insodoing delivering a lot more power. To illustrate this: imagine that the accelerator of my car is a small root hovering above the ground. Now the Mercedes accelerator pad is like a loose coathanger swinger on a bar. You touch it and it sinks easily down, and the next moment the car is picking up speed soundlessly, gobbling up little white line and turning the road into a ribbon. This happens effortlessly.

Mercedes Benz come in the following classes: A,B,C, E and S. I’m guessing, but I’d say each class is more expensive than the next, which puts the C class pretty much in the middle. Even so, the C180 doesn’t come cheap, but it’s not beyond the reach of the average individual with some extra dosh saved up in the bank. It’s certainly not in the league – in terms of expense – of some of the fabulously expensive Mercedes out there that will put even millionaires seriously out of pocket.

The C180 remains an affordable, classy automobile for the discerning driver who wishes to have a premiere driving experience. And when you’re at the wheel of the C180 you truly feel that this is the ultimate in modern transportation. We have to get around on a day to day basis. This Mercedes makes that experience absolute bliss, with incredible power and control at your disposal, even at a modest 220km/h. With the C180, the road is your oyster.