In the wild Indian car bazaar, where minimal cosmetic changes are enough to deem a model ‘all new’, the new E-class comes as a genuine delight. In its mid-life upgrade the new 2014 E-Class offers substantially more gear over the car it replaces. With major changes made to the interior, exterior, engines and safety tech, the new 2014 E-class amazed us with the degree of progress it has achieved for a facelift.
Having driven the E63 AMG variant of the car at the BIC earlier, we had a fair idea of what to expect from the basic version of the car. Moreover, the heavily specced and power packed E63 AMG left the vanilla E250 CDI with little to impress us. To our surprise, the new E-class delighted us by surpassing our expectations by a more than a fair margin in the real world. We took the mid-level luxury saloon for a 300 km spin to get familiar with it, and had a time to remember.
Words: Amit Chhangani
Images: Hanoz Patel & Harsh Vyas
Design and visuals
The new E-class has been thoroughly overhauled. However, it still uses the shell of its predecessor. This means that the overall proportions remain the same, though much has changed in terms of detailing and design.
Internationally the new E-class is available in two flavors as regards the front fascia. The standard model, as well as the ELEGANCE variant comes with a 3-louvre grille and Mercedes-Benz star on the bonnet. The AVANTGARDE variant, on the other hand, has a twin louver design with a massive star in the middle of the grille to exude a sportier character. For India, Mercedes has gone the sporty way with the AvantGarde styling. And it’s the better choice of the two in our humble opinion. More and more youngsters are buying these premium saloons and the sporty styling suits their taste better.
Unlike the previous version where the E-Class had four separate headlamp lenses, the new E has only two front lenses. M-B, however, has retained the four-eyed look for the E-class with segmentation under the main lens. The boundaries for the two separate pairs of lamps are defined by the edges of daytime running lights, which by themselves look quite stunning. Styled in a tapering shape towards the grille, these lights are the highlight of the new E-class’s stunning new face.
Both bumper and bonnet have been redesigned. There are no lights on the new bumper and with the wing design of its curved spoiler lip it subtly underlines the sporty aspirations of the E-Class.
The low-beam headlamps and the daytime running lamps feature LED technology as standard. Full LED headlamps are also available as an option. Some tweaks to the profile are targeted at making the car ‘look’ longer, although the length remains unchanged. New lines in profile also work towards making the car look tauter and ready for action when looked at from the front three quarters.
At the rear, the lights and bumper have been revised. The design for the tail lamps is new with a two-tone white and red look. The horizontally laid out tail-lamps emphasize the width, and with fibre optics create a characteristic night design which is typical of Mercedes. The high mount stop lamp also uses LED technology.
The redesigned rear bumper extends out and incorporates the stylish, angular exhausts with chrome tipped mufflers on the Avantgarde variant.
In all, the new Mercedes E-Class even after retaining the basic chassis and dimensions of its forebear manages to exude a much more modern and stylish character. It looks elegantly sporty, and those new headlights make it identifiaable from a mile away. Kudos to Mercedes benz designers for pulling off a stellar job for a mid-life update of this generation of E.
Next page for Interior, Features and Cabin Comfort>>>
Now that’s how a Merc should look like! The previous gen all looked like old school dated creations.