Mercedes-Benz C-Class

Looking for all the world like a shrunken S-Class limo, the latest C-Class executive saloon is a tempting used buy with a major trick up its sleeve

- Oliver Young

BACK IN 2022, New York magazine ran a cover story entitled 'The Year of the Nepo Baby', with the article poking fun at Hollywood stars and their influential parents. However, nepotism isn't just alive in Tinseltown; it also exists in the car world, as demonstrated by the latest Mercedes-Benz C-Class.

You see, this executive saloon is, in effect, a baby S-Class limousine. It looks a lot like that car, inside and out, and it uses the same underpinnings.

Their engines are rather different, though, with every C-Class having four-cylinder power (versus six cylinders in the S-Class). These include 201bhp 1.5-litre and 254bhp 2.0-litre petrols (in the C200 and C300 respectively), plus 2.0-litre diesels producing 197bhp (C220d) and 262bhp (C300d). All of these engines get mild hybrid electrical assistance for small performance and fuel economy gains.

Meanwhile, the plugin hybrid (PHEV) C300e pairs a 2.0-litre petrol engine with an electric motor for a 308bhp total output and a classleading official electric range of up to 71 miles.

There are also two AMG performance models: the 402bhp C43 and the 670bhp C63. The latter is a PHEV that trades electric range (just eight miles) for outright performance.