Last time I saw him, my grandfather told me that Mercedes make very nice cars. In his and my native Australia, he has remained steadfastly loyal to Holden Commodores (better known to most readers and drivers in the UAE as the Chevrolet Lumina) for as long as I can remember. But he has worked hard his whole life, fought in the Second World War, successfully raised two kids, maintained a beautiful family farm and been a marvellous grandfather, so it'd just be nice to see him drive to the club for his Friday night dinner ritual in a brand new Mercedes. And if I was choosing a Merc for my grandfather, it would definitely be the E280.
This may sound like I am writing off this particular Merc as a car that's just for grandfathers. Sure, it's not a car that I can imagine being embraced by boy-racers, but the reason why I wish I could buy my grandfather one as a present is because, like him, it's just so dignified. And dignified doesn't have to mean dull. Dignified, in the case of the E280, means luxury and elegance and, at Dh190,000, it's not completely out of reach, especially compared to other cars the Stuttgart automaker rolls out.
It is wide, it is smooth, it is whisper-quiet and it's so comfortable. It feels like you're sitting in a plush leather chair at a gentlemen's club, making it a very relaxing car for a long drive. There is even leather padding on the inside of the doors. The model I drove had a white exterior and a rather conservative beige leather interior - it wouldn't have been my first choice of colour, but it was inoffensively elegant. The beige leather around the gear selector was, however, somewhat reminiscent of dry elbow skin, but that may be just my overactive imagination running riot.
The back seat has plenty of room and, if you're taking the E280 on a weekend away, there's plenty of room for the luggage. You're not going to get the same feeling of carefree motoring in the E280 as you would in, say, the new Mercedes SLK. But if you just want to get to pretty much anywhere in stylish comfort, you can't go too far wrong here. A lovely design feature that Mercedes has introduced across models is the radio tuning feature: on the same screen that is used for the sat nav, you find the station using a digital version of an old-school radio dial with the needle running along the AM and FM bands. I know I'm a Luddite who still plays tapes in her car, but sometimes it's these little details that give a car a little bit more soul.
But what of the performance? Well, the week before I drove the E280, I tried out life as a wealthy petrolhead in the spectacularly potent Mercedes C63 AMG, so any car that would come next was not going to knock my socks off in quite the same way. It was a bit like going on a date with Donny Osmond straight after a wild weekend with Colin Farrell. Colin may have the looks, but Donny is the one you can rely on and introduce to your mother. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing. In much the same way, my own mother would despair if the C63 was my permanent car but would be far happier knowing I was behind the wheel of the E280. The E280 is no AMG, but it does have a decent amount of power.
It has 231 horses under the bonnet and 300Nm of torque, and it carries on the tradition of the E-Class Mercs in that it is a comfy, safe and attractive car. The handling is reasonably dynamic, the steering is precise and the suspension makes light work of speed humps and lumpy surfaces. The automatic gearbox has a slight tendency to hunt for gears at speeds between about 40kph and 70kph, which can make the pickup feel a bit halting, but once it passes the 70kph mark, the gear changes feel far more seamless.
The only point that had me truly baffled about the E280 was the cup-holders. Now, I'm not the kind of car reviewer who gets hugely obsessed over cup holders, but when I was trying to slam down a Diet Coke between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, I realised I had nowhere to put the can and ended up squeezing it into the storage pocket inside the door. When I returned the car, I asked where the cup holders were, and it turns out that the said rubber alcove is the cup holder and apparently my Diet Coke would have been perfectly safe.
Not that this would be a problem for my grandfather. He's far too dignified to do something as cheap as swig a can of soft drink as he drives. But he'd love the performance, the finish and the comfort, all of which the E280 carries out with so much class. glewis@thenational.ae