Category: Compact Executive 
Price Range: £19,672 to £52,675
Agile handling, driving position, quietness at speed, clever electronic controls and features, indicator repeaters built into door mirrors, big glovebox
Foot-operated parking brake, cheap, hard plastics in facia, hard ride on optional low-profile tyres, baffling array of buttons
The C-Class is a (relatively) affordable way into Mercedes ownership without compromising on the key Mercedes qualities and characteristics.
By and large, the C-Class is no more difficult to drive than any of its rivals. Comfortable, and with smooth controls, it can in fact be quite a pleasure. Except for one thing: the infernal foot operated parking brake. With an automatic gearbox it's a nuisance, but couple it to a manual and the footwell features more pedals than a church organ.
The best way to have fun with a C-Class? Sell it and buy an Alfa. Only kidding, this version is much, much better than its predecessor and is much closer to the class's good-time cars. The addition of a six-speed manual gearbox and precise rack-and-pinion steering made a lot of difference, as does tightly damped suspension.
The healthy array of engine options means that performance relates largely to your budget. The base model is a 2.0-litre, though it's still dubbed C180, but that's marketing and snobbery for you. Other than that, there's a supercharged 2.0-litre in the C200, a 2.6 V6 in the C240 and a 3.2 V6 in the C320. There are three turbodiesels too; 2.2-litre units in the C200 and C220 and a 2.7 in the C270. The V6s, obviously, are a deal more refined than the four-cylinder petrol units. More surprisingly, so are the strong, torquey turbodiesels. The quickest is the AMG-tuned C32 - see separate road test for more on this.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Mercedes C-Class
wrote on 14 11 2006