Test drive Mercedes Benz C-class w202 1997-2000 sedan

Life is coupled

There are cars by which you immediately see who is a cabman, oligarch or playboy in front of you. The combination of all three is Mercedes Cl 600.
 
Life was a success. My favorite advertising poster: against the backdrop of red caviar of black, the inscription has been a success. Life was a success. The new compartment is for those who can afford their own arts. It is no coincidence that Mercedes-Benz chose one of the most luxurious and expensive places of the old Europe to journalists to journalists, the azure coast of France. The official part was arranged in the famous Du Cap-Eden Roc hotel, the guests of which at different times were Winston Churchill, John Kennedy, Sharon Stone and countless writers, artists, graphs, barons, bandits and prostitutes. Sean Connery stayed in your room in the summer, sir, said the helpful porter, opening the door of the apartment in front of me. A curious detail: the hotel does not accept credit cards and is forbidden to use a mobile phone. From the window there was a sea, palm trees and the entire model range of Mercedes coupe, put up for reporters.
 
Life of loan. The compartment has always been a machine for the tops of the vertex of the automobile gamut of any concern. Mercedes is no exception. The definition was always the same as a compartment: elegant, exclusive, impressive. And, of course, expensive. The price of a new machine in the basic configuration, according to our estimates, in Russia will be about $ 175 thousand. At the same time, the Daimlerchrysler concern expects to produce 9,000 cars in 2000 and capture almost a third of the market of all expensive compartment, pulling Ferrari, Jaguar and Aston Martin to their side. The latter sounded between the lines of the official speech of the representative of the plant.
The roof line stretched like a bow gives almost a 5-meter machine lightness and swiftness. If you look at the car behind, it seems that you have a convertible with a removable roof, like a 129th body. The impression is enhanced by the side glasses of a two -layer triplex without frames. The roof smoothly flows into the windshield, the hood of the feet begins. Something is wrong here. It feels like the car was drawn by two designers who did not really get along with each other, before the new compartment seemed to be copied from the e-class: all the same four eyes and a very similar grate of the radiator. Perhaps this is continuity, but it seemed to me somewhat strange. At the end of the dough, she even played a cruel joke with us: waiting for the backward comrades, we all waved his hands every time, seeing a silver four -eyed car. But it was invariably e-class.
However, with the similarity of the colors and shapes of W215, not only metal is used in the manufacture of the body, but aluminum, magnesia and even plastic. It is almost impossible to determine the touch from which a particular part of the body is made.
Life according to concepts. A year passed after the premiere of the new S-class, which, despite success, many automobile journalists dubbed the most democratic representative Mercedes. It seems that this compartment of the concern decided to put everything in their places. There is almost everything from the S-class plus its own, special.
The interior of the salon, of course, speaks of belonging to the family, but almost everything is covered with the skin here: panel, sidewalls, doors, and the ceiling and lid of the thinnest suede of Alcantara. Unique chairs created specifically for W215 are equipped with built -in belts, heating, ventilation and massage systems. When folding the back, the chair automatically moves forward, facilitating the landing and lifting of the rear passengers who feel very comfortable there. On the compartment serially installed the Keyless-Go system (literally go without a key), which involves reading a small keyboard with a code, and then opening the doors with simple pressing on the handle and starting the engine with one button.
The branded Mercedes Comand navigation system, which we already wrote about (No. 11, 1998), united in the same block with a radio, CD, TV and telephone, in Russia, alas, does not work. But on the roads of France, it determines the location of the car and paves the route with an accuracy of a meter. There is something incredible in the fact that the car turns into an almost living creature: the desired turn tells you in a female voice, obediently repeating the phone number after you, it is typing it right there. At the same time, almost all the functions of computer management necessary for the driver are duplicated on the steering wheel, and their display on the panel under the speedometer.
LIFE IS LIFE. The heart of the machine is a fundamentally new V12 engine with a volume of 5.8 liters, which is lighter than its predecessor, quieter, more powerful and more economical. The frugal Germans also introduced the system of disconnecting half of the cylinders with uniform movement along the highway and achieved the fuel consumption by almost 20 percent, despite the fact that it is already small about 19 liters per hundred. Another motor is less than a volume of almost a liter and is already familiar to us by S500, but the difference is 60 hp. And the prestigious nameplate on the trunk will undoubtedly make CL 600 more attractive for Russians.
Perhaps the Germans never managed to combine the supercomfort of the representative car and the power of the sportkup in one machine. Switching the Tipronika lever to the sporting mode, I sharply press on the gas pedal. The car shoots up to a hundred in 6 seconds, and an approaching steep turn makes you instinctively slow down. At the same time, the gear shift occurs as if in the middle ground is clearly quite clear to understand the speed and at the same time softly. The delight slightly deceived the steering wheel, his move seemed somewhat great for us and my colleague, however, this can be attributed to the desire of the designers to alleviate the flour of the driver during parking. Similar goals are the button on the central panel after pressing it will rise 5 cm up, and you can calmly climb into the curb.
Mercedes was the first to introduce a lot of what was later the symbol of a modern car: airbags, ABS, ESP and so on. A fundamentally new thing in the compartment, a kind of Mercedes debut in this area ABC (Active Body Control). If you describe its purpose briefly, then this is a car control system on the road and optimizing the movement of the body and suspension during the start, passing turns and inhibition. Perhaps for the first time it was possible to achieve an ideal combination of comfort and sports style of driving: when driving in normal mode, the suspension works as in an ordinary passenger car of high comfort, but it is worth choosing an aggressive driving style ABC will give the command to shock absorbers and levers, will be reduced to a minimum of rolls when passing turns. , optimizes braking. The subjective impression of the ride with the ABC button is left: the speed at which the driver can afford to overcome steep serpentines has increased significantly, to disrupt the compartment as an ordinary machine, in a skid or slippage is almost very very difficult. Another thing is the system may well play with a very desperate driver a cruel joke: in the end, each auxiliary mechanism has its limits
To list all the technical innovations of the new compartment, a third of the magazine would be required. This is a radio control of air pressure in the tires, and a smart steering, the effort to which changes depending on the speed of driving, and a more environmentally friendly V12 motor, and much more. The CL 600 coupe, which is now on the technological and price peak of the concern, is not the limit. About four years later, a new supermine from a Mercedes SLR compartment with a capacity of 557 hp will go into the series!
 
Text Alexander Fedorov, photo of the author and Mercedes
 

A source: "Autopilot"