Cruise Missile

Later we got to beta-test the second car from MBIL, the diesel powered E 250D in a fantastic break from our mundane road test schedule. We drove it to buy the daily milk and tooled it into office. We rejoiced at the adoring reception we got everywhere and developed a permanent scowl glaring at lesser mortals driving their junkheaps perilously close to our spotless boulevard cruiser. We detested anything else on wheels for that week. In the E-250 D, we played God on national highways and stopped and admired the car compulsively every so often. A year later its time to check out the next Benz. This time its the E 220 automatic.

 

Looks

The sculpted-out-of-a-single-aluminium-ingot look is generic. The classic lines give The W124 spec Merc a timeless charm. It will look modern well into the next century, and it had better. Else, those parting with Rs 25 lakh for the privilege of owning it would be very reluctant to pull out their chequebooks.

Back in the 1920s Henry Ford declared customers could have the T in any colour they liked so long as it was black. In the glory days of the Mercedes F1 racers, the Silver Arrows made an equally emphatic fashion statement. I think the Mercedes paint shop ought to keep silver as their default hue. Our test car came in metallic silver and she looked gorgeous. She was enough to send any wheels enthusiast down memory lane into the 50s when the Silver Arrows ruled the world.

Guess what, the same day I got the Mercedes, a McLaren Mercedes in silver livery won the first Grand Prix of the season! Its a nice little coincidence , even if you dont read the daily horoscopes. The paint quality of the car is excellent, given the fact that MBIL paints the completed body shells at the Telco paint shop and brings them back for assembly. The carpeting continues to be excellent and the leather seats are immaculately tailored. MBIL lives upto its company slogan: The E 220 is not just made in India, but it is made by Mercedes in India!

Engine

This section is just for the record after all, the Mumbai readers are still getting to grips with BS Motoring. The Mercedes Benz E 220 is powered by a 2199 CC fuel injected in-line four cylinder engine. It boasts four valves per cylinder and cranks up as much as 143 bhp right on cue at 5400 rpm. This impressive technological tour de force four potter has 20.4 Kg M of monstrous torque. Thats good enough to haul a road roller along at a brisk clip, let alone tackle the worst 40 degree incline the Border Roads Organisation could dream up.

The manual geared version could manage a controlled top speed of 190 kph and would easily do more if it was shod with designer rubber. Since nobody who can actually buy a petrol Merc cares much about consumption, it makes little sense to give it here. But, for the academically inclined, the E 220 with its automatic transmission gave a decent 9 Kpl in city traffic, 10 in suburban traffic, 12 in the highway tests and an astonishing 14 kpl in a controlled run with fuel carried in calibrated bottles.

Performance

The auto box has blunted the performance edge of the E 220 somewhat. The acceleration times came down by one second as the test car crossed the 60 kph mark in seven seconds. On the 0-100 run, it loses out all of two seconds to its manual geared cousin the test car took 12 seconds to hit its ton. Also remember, all these times were logged with the automatic transmission in sport mode. If you want better fuel economy and do not intend to have yourself cloned as David Coulthard on a McLaren Mercedes F1 car, then slide that small switch next to the gear select to the economy mode.

But with 143 bhp of raw muscle in hand, there is very little that you will miss. The plus point is that there is nothing that prevents you from taking the car to its limits, not even gearshifts. Cruising at fearsome three-digit speeds ( I darent reveal the road test figures if I want to keep my licence!) the car felt like a remote-controlled missile. The over-engineered isolation of the cabin is welcome in polluted environs and Mercedes engineers have left enough room for feed back from the tarmac to grace the nerve cells of the driver. Just enough to leave the human element in driving, you see.

But when it comes to terrain domination, the human element seems to have no hand. All independent suspension, assisted by coil springs and anti-roll bar gives a pleasant ride however hard you push it over rough roads. Man-made barriers like speed breakers and bumps pose little challenge to the poise of this E class Mercedes.

The perfectly articulated steering wheel makes short work of the tightest U turns and aids in high speed directional changes. We tried to get the tail swishing out at some serious cornering tests. The 1,500 kg (kerb) car just does not like losing poise or dignity. And when we succeeded at last in getting this stately lady to do a shimmy she obliged, briefly, and promptly tucked herself back into the normal driving line as if nothing had happened. Its difficult to explain how exciting those brief flirtations can be.

The very engineering stability poses a challenge. Every time we get a Mercedes Test car, every test driver attempts to persuade the car to do just what the engineers try to cut out. The thrill of fishtailing a Mercedes, the ungainly sight of a Mercedes doing wheel spins and splitting lanes ahhh! Teutonic engineering at its best is fun to test.

How we tried to get those wheels to lock up! The 100 to zero braking runs took less than ten metres and the car, though perfectly steerable on the brakes, never locked up, thanks to a hard working ABS (anti-lock braking system). The ABS continuously applies and releases the brakes within nano-seconds. The car can be steered out of panic situations and that is the biggest advantage of ABS gadgetry. Thats why Mercedes PR guys boast that those who appreciate the Mercs the most are those whove crashed them because they usually live to tell the tale!

Detailing

The test car featured niceties like a Blaupunckt music system complete with a 10 CD changer, that can be operated via a remote control device attached to the steering wheel. Safety rules in the Mercedes, and more so in this automatic. The car wont start unless and until the four speeder knob is in P for Park position. And if you manage to start it somehow, it will beep the hell out of you until you wear the seat belts and if you try and get out of the car with the gear knob in any other position than P, it will yell even louder. The idiot lights warn you about the existence of anti-pyrotechnical devices such as airbags. The Mercedes standards manual calls them the Supplementary restraining system and the seat belts are Restraining systems because the former are useless without the latter.

Verdict

Its almost laughable to say this is the best automatic car made in India. It had better be, with that retail price tag of Rs 25,00,000. But, it is worth every rupee that you would fork out on it. Made at Pimpri or not, that three-pointed star teleports you straight to a very different realm of automotive summits a place called Stuttgart. Insurmountable, if imitable standards, as the Lexus jockeys will agree.

But one cant help but compare it with the only competition available here, at least for the moment. The only car that rates in the same league is a BMW 528 Automatic that we drove last year. The new Beemer is much more of a drivers car than this E 220 with its automatic transmission. But, then that is the way they build cars in Munich, and it is very, very different from the genes they weld into the moulded metal, plastic and rubber at the Mercedes Benz factory in Stuttgart.

The Mercedes engineers have left enough room for feedback from the tarmac to grace the nerve cells of the driver

If Janis Joplin had still been around, shed have been asking the Lord to buy her a fully automatic Mercedes Benz, says Bijoy Kumar Y