What's a human life worth? Not in spiritual or moral terms, but in cold, hard cash. The answer depends on your financial, geographical and political status: Bill Gates could dig deep if the pearly gates beckoned; a peasant tilling a field in Mali would have little choice. But let's take the proposition from the abstract to the concrete: what financial value do you (and can you) place on your own life, and that of your loved ones? If you're closer to Bill than Mali, the Mercedes E320 may well be the car for you. We have simply never driven a car with better primary and secondary safety....
Safety? But surely a Merc is dominated by other traits - characteristics like performance, handling, comfort, prestige. Well, yes. But when you remove the eye-glaze that the on-road figure of near-$140,000 induces, it's quite easy to be critical. The seats are hard and flat; the steering so slow in ratio around straight-ahead that it's often permanently cocked to counter camber or sidewinds; the V6 startlingly rises from a subdued murmur to an intrusive, thrashy growl when you boot it. Are these the characteristics you expect in a car of this supposed stature?
But then you begin to realise that the bodywork has the integrity that would come from a genesis involving a single billet of titanium; that the damping is simply masterful in its ability to combine ride comfort and handling prowess; that the CD stacker system is the best OE system that you have ever heard; that the in-cabin controls are utterly understated but no less comprehensive for that; that the brake-assist ABS system gives you stopping distances - rain or shine - that are shorter than in any car you've ever driven. You stop analysing the car piecemeal and start considering its holistic magnificence... and become enormously impressed.
The sheer stability of the car on the road, the surrounding cacoon of airbags and structural bodywork - sure you could still do a Diana, but you'd need to have left the seatbelts off, have a drunk driver at the wheel and then meet a very hard concrete pole...
The E-class Mercedes is available with engines developing from 125kW all the way up to 260kW. At the slow end is the E240 with 2.4 litres of V6; at the very fast end is the factory-delivered E55 AMG with 5.4 litres of V8. On test here is the mid-field placegetter - the E320 that develops 165kW at 5600 rpm with a broad torque spread of 315Nm from 3000 to 4800 rpm. The all-alloy engine uses three valves per cylinder (two inlets and one exhaust) and 12 plugs. Plug pairs are fired in sequence, rather than simultaneously. On the DAT Racing chassis dyno, the six developed a rear-wheel power peak just under 120kW - a 27 per cent transmission absorption. Variable timing of the intake cams is used and the engine also has variable intake manifolding, both contributing to the impressive low-rpm tractive effort figures. The dyno-identified three-thousand-or-so rpm power hump can be felt on the road: the engine comes on cam noticeably around these engine speeds. The comp ratio is high at 10:1 but normal unleaded fuel is used - not premium.
Helping to hustle the 1580kg along is a 5-speed auto - a ratio for every occasion. In fact, at times there is a surplus of gears: the trans control ECU has been programmed to full-throttle downshift to the lowest possible ratio, even when an up-change will then be only a second or two away. The result can feel very much like a trans hiccup, with a gearchange closely following kickdown. However as a result, the in-gear performance is startlingly good considering the available kilowatts per kilogram. A rolling 60 - 90 km/h takes about 2.8 seconds, while reaching 100 km/h from a standstill will consume about 8.4 seconds. While these figures aren't ground-breaking in the Australian late-Nineties context of 5.7 litre V8 prestige Holdens, the E320 never feels underpowered. Economy on hard-driven test was excellent - an average of 11.4 litres/100km.
The gearstick uses the traditional Mercedes wobbly-gate approach - one of many styling cues and design features that trading-up Merc owners will notice. The fourth/fifth gear selection is made by moving the lever sideways, and once in the fourth gear plane, third and second can also be selected without battling a detent. When familiar with the system, it is slick and effective. However, a Tiptronic-style flick shift would be even nicer; it's to be introduced in the imminent E320 update.
On the road the car feels ponderous. The leather steering wheel is large, the throttle travel long, the seats' lack of lateral support not encouraging of quick cornering. Rather than intuitively feeding in the steering lock as you do on (say) an Alfa, or gaining the ultra-quick turn-in that comes from flicking the wheel in a Commodore, the Mercedes' cornering sequence is a deliberate and considered process: (1) the corner is approaching; (2) start to turn the wheel; (3) turn it further and further until the apex is reached; (4) unwind lock as the corner is exited. Perhaps it's no coincidence that this is the exact approach taught at the Mercedes Driver Training clinics!
On tight and twisty roads the twirling required of the wheel can become tiresome; the justification that this gives stability at very high speed doesn't ring true. When high-speed steering corrections are required to counter gusty crosswinds (and they certainly are needed, too!), the magnitude of the wheel movement required at the speeds being travelled is unsettling. What would be imperceptible movements of the wrists in another car become actual steering inputs visible to passengers. And when the speedo is reading perhaps 160 km/h, this is disconcerting to all aboard.... Not this that this approach isn't quite deliberate Germanic engineering - my own Audi S4's steering is almost identical in on-centre feel and speed of response.
But what's the handling like once you're acclimatised to the steering idiosyncrasies? Blisteringly good.... The E320 is available with firmer, slightly lower suspension in Avantgarde trim (A$4000 extra) but we found in the Elegance an almost perfect blend of ride and handling. Oddly enough, the best description we can make of the ride is that it is very much like the modified Subaru WRX we sampled that was equipped with huge Drummond Motorsport dampers and matching springs. Small, sharp bumps are absorbed imperceptibly by the Merc, but meet larger amplitude rises and the suspension can be felt to firm-up very quickly. Ride in the E320 and the word 'controlled' comes to mind: there was never an occasion during the 700 kilometres that we had the car when the suspension was caught out. On dirt it is superb (the immense rigidity of the body best displayed on that surface), on city patched bitumen taut and absorbing, and on freeways exemplary.
Turn-in on the 215/55 P6000 Pirellis worn on factory 16 x 7.5 inch alloys is excellent, the car sitting flat and the off-centre feel of the steering meaty. Power oversteer is curtailed by the standard Traction Control System (able to be switched off, but why would you ever bother?) and so in low speed corners you can safely enter on the limit of front-end adhesion and then just boot it - whatever the weather conditions or road surface. This is the case even though - unlike some in the Mercedes line-up - this car doesn't feature Auto Stability Control, the system where individual wheels can be braked. In high speed corners the car is exactly as you'd expect - stable with a little understeer.
Braking performance is literally eye-bulging. The four wheel discs (vented only at the front) and big calipers give superb high speed braking - speed is washed off with the utmost stability. The E320 uses the Mercedes Brake Assist system, which automatically senses the speed of the braking application and if an emergency is detected, applies full braking pressure until the car stops or the pedal is fully released. This system was introduced as a result of testing which showed that many people decrease braking pressure during emergency stops, or do not apply the brakes hard enough in the initial application. The system works extremely well, giving stopping distances literally metres shorter. It is quite illuminating to perform a simulated emergency stop and realise that you, too, might be one of those drivers who doesn't usually hold full braking pressure...
The E-class is a sizeable car but space isn't wasted. The boot is large - 500 litres - and there is an enormous amount of room for the front seat occupants. With the front seats positioned to accept typically-sized people, there's also plenty of room in the back. And they'll be comfortable and safe there, too: incorporated in the rear fold-down armrest is a pull-out cup-holder and a compartment for the first aid kit (missing from the test car). The light colours give the cabin an airy, spacious feel - helped also by the optional glass sunroof.
The front seats are fully electrically adjustable, with three memories provided. The controls are easy to use, with the switches mimicking the seats - you want to go up, then lift the miniature seat squab; you want the head restraint lower, then push down the tiny head restraint. The steering is also electrically adjustable for reach and height, meaning that activating a memory pre-select sets the steering, seat, head restraint height, and side mirrors. You have to set the interior mirror yourself - jeez, what a pain - but even this device has a trick function. It's auto-dimming (not dipping) - at night, a following car using high beam will cause the mirror to darken until the glare is not there.
Facing the driver is a very traditional dashboard. A central 260 km/h speedo (the E320 is s'posed to be good for 238 km/h but in windy conditions an indicated 210 was the max), to the left of that, coolant/fuel needles, and on the right a tacho. Beneath the speedo is a multi-function negative LCD display - usually outside temp, trip meter, odometer and time, but sometimes lights-on warnings or speed limiter function. A speed limiter? In addition to a traditional (and excellent) cruise control, the E320 has a user-selectable speed limiter. Able to be quickly and easily set with resolution right down to the single kilometre per hour, the limiter uses the engine's electronic throttle control to prevent that speed being exceeded. In the City of Speed Cameras and Radars, I set this to 63 km/h (urban limit is 60) and found it useful and effective. The limiter is over-ridden when full throttle is used; otherwise, the car simply won't go any faster. Hill descents will even see the trans down-changing for increased engine braking - though the brakes themselves are not actually applied.
The HVAC system uses a semi-climate control approach - individual temperatures can be selected via knurled colour-coded knobs for passenger and driver, though what these temps actually are isn't shown! The air con compressor can be disabled, and the system also has a function that allows the heater to effectively operate for up to 30 minutes with the car stopped and the engine off. Unlike many European cars, the ambient air ventilation is excellent, especially with the sunroof's trailing edge lifted.
Looked at closely, the Mercedes bristles with good, practical design:
- there are louvres in the sunroof blind so that ventilation can still occur with the rear edge of the glass lifted but the blind closed;
- when raising the boot floor to access the (steel) spare wheel, the panel lift clips into the boot rubber moulding - so holding it in the raised position;
- the left-hand mirror dips to the kerb when reverse is selected;
- the passenger side airbag automatically disables if a baby or young child is in the seat;
- the hazard flasher switch is a prominent safety-orange triangle placed right in the middle of the centre console upper panel;
- the single huge wiper is incredibly fast and very effective;
- and the interior lighting puts all other cars to shame for both brilliance and spread.
Conclusion? The world's oldest carmaker has had a very long time to develop engineering excellence and an idiosyncratic philosophy. That philosophy gives you a car that could be so much more wieldy and comfortable with quicker steering and softer seats; it also gives you a car with a breathtaking ride/handling compromise, the best retained values on the market, and simply immense safety and competence.
www.mercedes.com.au
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