Something Special
It’s always a pleasure driving a new car and the new Mercedes C220D is another great offering from this top marque.
With a good price point, it offers a lot of features for a luxury car. The sunroof is a good starter, giving the cabin an open and light feeling while the console is a polished grey and metallic finish; 1950cc, 4 cylinder, 143kW and 400 torque, it really is a beautiful car to look at as well as drive. It features dual exhausts and sleek curves, the fuel economy of diesel, its torque allows instant response when driving – 0-100 in 6.9 seconds – and it’s smooth and refined. It’s not touch screen on the Apple Play but after a bit of time with Mercedes and their control dial and touch pad system, I’ve become used to navigating it, though it did take a while to stray from my iPhone mentality.
Something I totally love about this vehicle are the stunning 19-inch bi-colour twin spoke alloys. The model I drove came white with black rims and boy does it look good. It just adds something a little special. When you meet the car at night, it has carpet lighting to help you out with an LED lighting system that helps show you the way – technology at its greatest. Its all-digital display and interface systems are getting easier to handle and a lot more simplistic for someone who is kind of plug and go. The steering wheel adjusts automatically to your specifications and it just ‘feels’ good.
The base model sits at $75,400 but my model had some great additions; AMG package $3700; seat comfort package $900; dark tinted privacy glass $700; and the vision package at $6300, all together making a grand total of $87,000. I definitely felt that I was driving something special. You see a few C-class models on the street but the C220D just felt… special. Earlier in the year I managed to grab a week with the C200; the little petrol sister to the C220, it is a 1497cc, 4-cylinder, 135kW, 280 Nm rear wheel drive, mild petrol hybrid at $73,900.
It had similar 18-inch bi-colour wheels and different upholstery, but it just isn’t as good as its big brother. I can’t put my finger on it because, although they look the same, the 220D just seems the better buy. That could be my macho ‘got to have more power’ driver mentality speaking but the C220D just feels better. I keep saying that and it really is personal opinion but perhaps you need to judge this for yourself by taking a test drive with the team at Armstrong Prestige. The C class is Mercedes’ core sedan range and after driving the C220D and the C200 I can see why they are such good staples in the Mercedes range.
