Dr. Hfuhruhurr
|
New E Class fails the taxi testToday was official launch day in Germany so I trotted over to Mercedes' palatial showroom on Salzufer for a poke around. The car looks way better than you'd think from the photos, especially from the front, where the descending lines make it look very poised. It doesn't even need gigantic wheels to look planted, and all the colours they had looked OK (there must have been 20-30 examples there, inside and out).
The interior is also a big step up, however here we come to the snag. I thought they'd been quite clever in allowing the CLS to compete with the likes of the XF, and therefore making the E Class more upright and hence more roomy, especially given how many of them are headed for taxi ranks the length and breadth of Germany. But having got in the front and set the seat for myself, I then got in the back to find my legroom unexpectedly and disappointingly restricted. It might be OK for a ten-minute taxi ride, but I wouldn't fancy spending three hours in there.
The problem of course is that the front seats are so huge, and in particular so thick from front to back, that they steal too much of the legroom you'd reasonably expect in a car 4.9 metres long. I can't believe it's not possible, given modern materials and design technology, to make a comfortable and safe seat that doesn't have to be 15-20 cm thick. I can only imagine what they must weigh too.
Given that the one thing I thought would give it a USP over its competitors, I'd say it's good news all round for Jaguar, really. Though of course the E Class will probably outsell it ten to one, but it doesn't deserve to.
|
