I have always felt that there is something immensely reassuring about a Mercedes, and the C-Class 200 Kompressor Avantgarde saloon which was kindly loaned to The Magazine by Woking Motors has not made me change my mind.

Add to that the fact that the price of the C180 has come down from £21,140 - which, for the standard of equipment and reliability, was not that expensive - to £19,995, and the attraction becomes even more focused. 'Our' C200 Avantgarde is set at £23,790.

Design is what Mercedes is all about. Nothing in the car is there without a very sound reason. Everything works just as it should. From the first moment you sit in the driver's seat there is a feeling of solid dependability about the car. The seats are very comfortable, the design of the interior is such that all the switches and controls are clearly marked and easily found, the accommodation in the rear is roomy and, with the doors and windows closed, there is a cathedral hush in the interior.

The Avantgarde comes with a choice of 6-speed manual or 5-speed automatic transmission - the one we drove was the automatic with Speedtronic cruise control and the changes were effortless and virtually impossible to detect. Automatic climate control, automatically dimming rear view mirror, and metallic paintwork: all are standard features.

The car has everything you would expect on a vehicle of this class - airbags front and side for the driver and front passenger, electrically operated and heated door mirrors, electric windows, automatic headlamp activation, partial electrically operated front seats, ABS braking, alarm system with immobiliser... the list goes on and on.
Certainly, there are some things which not everybody would like, but these are mostly personal foibles. The foot operated 'handbrake' for example. I would prefer to operate the parking brake in the traditional manner, but I am sure that with sufficient time to become really familiar with the car I would grow accustomed to pressing a pedal to put the parking brake on and pulling a handle to release it. Again, I have changed my first impressions about the forward lights, which seemed at first rather like two drips of water blending together. Now I accept the look as an intrinsic part of the overall design.
But the overall impression is one of solid power and comfort. And, talking about power, the C-Class has it in plenty. The engine is a 1,796 cc, 4-cylinder, 16-valve, 163 hp unit, fitted with an efficient supercharger, intercooling, and variable valve timing. This gives a 0-62.5 mph (sorry, but this equates with 100 kilometres per hour) figure of 9.4 seconds and an excellent overall miles/gallon figure of nearly 31. The manual version gives over 33 and has slightly quicker acceleration.

Mercedes-Benz have managed to produce a 4-cylinder engine which has all the smoothness of a 6-cylinder unit. This has been accomplished (and forgive me if we become a little technical) by installing a crankshaft-driven Eaton-type supercharger which enables the engine to provide impressive torque from idle. As a result, the engine largely runs with the throttle wider open, making it more efficient, thereby giving higher performance with lower fuel consumption. There is also a 'balancer shaft' which essentially reduces the vibrations which normally occur in a 4-cylinder unit.

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