Riding those luxury cars on the road makes us feel safe and secure – and the feeling of travelling is something special that makes our life on the road a special one. So buy Mercedes Benz C Class. The C-Class once again sets the standard, with dynamic new styling, enhanced driver appeal and an improved engine line-up.
Mercedes has as much of a reputation for big, posh estates as Volvo, and it’s a reputation it hopes to bolster this autumn when it launches the new C-class estate. Our spies caught Merc’s smallest wagon testing in Germany and under that black disguise cladding lays a roomier version of the saloon – with a few surprises up its sleeve.
Captured glam.
The Mercedes-Benz C-Class is a compact executive car produced by the Mercedes-Benz division of Daimler AG. First introduced in 1993 as a replacement for the 190 range, the C-Class was nicknamed the “Baby Benz” as it was the smallest model in the Marque’s lineup, until the 1997 arrival of the A-Class. The C-Class is built at Mercedes-Benz factories in Sindelfingen and Bremen, Germany, as well as in Mercedes’ factories in Brazil and DaimlerChrysler’s South African factory in East London. All US-market cars W202 cars were produced at the Germany plants. The very first W202 C-Class sedan was produced on June 1, 1993 and the second generation W203 C-Class rolled off the assembly line on July 18, 2000. The third generation W204 C-Class was launched in 2007. The C-Class is the base car in the United States.
The C-Class platform has been used for several coupes, including the CLC-Class (and its predecessor, the C-Class Sportcoupe) and the E-class Coupe (and its predecessor, the CLK-Class).
201 series –Mercedes-Benz introduced the 190 model in 1982. The sedan (W 201 series) was the first car in a new model series referred to within the company as the “compact class” – below the E-Class, S-Class and SL-Class.
The new model, designed by Bruno Sacco, took Mercedes-Benz values into the mid-range of the market. This included the company’s focus on technical innovations: the W 201 featured a chassis with multi-link independent rear suspension, a lightweight structure made of high-strength steel, bodywork with exemplary aerodynamic qualities and a high level of passive safety.
The 190 engines also set new standards: the use of an encapsulated engine in the diesel version led to the 190 D becoming known as the “whisper diesel”, while four-valve technology turned the gasoline-engine version of the compact class into a high-performance sports car.
A sneak peek on the insides of a Benz.
But the brand with the three-pointed star was also looking to expand. It was hoped that the compact class would make Mercedes attractive to new customers, particularly the younger generation. In the words of Gerhard Prinz, chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler-Benz AG in 1982: “Our new Mercedes-Benz class is a major step towards complementing our current passenger car range by the addition of an entire new model series. This will enable us to tap new opportunities in the marketplace, and to offer attractive models to an even larger number of prospective customers. After a number of years devoted more to consolidating our passenger car business, we have now laid the foundations for a more aggressive approach, a full-scale product drive.”
A lot of the required advanced development work had already been completed by the time the decision was made, so the model series was ready for the market within a comparatively short time, and road tests began as early as 1978. An enormous number of test cars were required during development. The process began with 25 component carriers within the body of a 200 model. These were used to test the new major components, particularly the axles. They were followed by 53 pre-prototypes and prototypes, made completely by hand, for testing the vehicle as a whole, and finally, a pilot series of 25 to 40 vehicles (depending on whether the cars required for type approval are included in the total).
Image credits: http://www.autosquick.com
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