Mercedes now makes two cars called the C-Class. One is electric . The other is sometimes petrol, sometimes diesel, sometimes hybrid. Both are full of screens and both, now, have enormous front grilles.
Why? Because Mercedes has announced with much pomp and fanfare that you are witnessing the single biggest update ever applied to a C-Class. This is bigger than Windows XP. Bigger than GTA 6 . It’s, well, a facelift of a medium-sized German executive car.
Besides many, many three-pointed star motifs in the grille and lights to ensure your neighbours are well aware you didn’t buy a Chinese upstart, what’s the new C got going for it? Well there’s, um, erm, huh. Let’s see.
The plug-in hybrid offers up to 62 miles of all-electric driving range. That’s deeply impressive and… the same as the pre-update C-Class. You can spec rear-wheel steering, though probably not in the UK. There’s new MBUX connectivity, which we fear will mean Mercedes finds a way to block the sun visors behind a subscription-only paywall.
Mercedes says the new C-Class can listen to your conversations and suggest podcasts that fit the context. Which isn’t dystopian at all. “In three hundred yards, turn left into the manosphere.”
One palpable improvement is to be found on the steering wheel. Mercedes has begun to admit defeat on its awful touch sensitive steering wheel buttons, and has brought back a physical volume knob. But as you can see, the rest of the interior is still dominated by a screen which doubles as a handy ski jump for any small pets who might be lounging on the back seat.
No word yet on what AMG’s going to do with this new C-Class. Put a V8 in it perhaps? In the meantime the most powerful regular C-Class is the four-wheel drive C400e plug-in hybrid, which generates a combined 390bhp.
Mercedes says all new Cs are ‘noticeably more agile’ thanks to retuned suspension. Just in time to fight the new BMW 3 Series, which is also splitting itself into combustion and purely electric twins to try to please all the people, all of the time…
