Four-Eyed Monster: Mercedes Benz E320

August 15,2001

Don’t tell anyone, but this Mercedes has a dark secret. Beneath its dignified-sedan clothes lurk the engine and chassis of a highly-capable sports car. The face may intend to look aggressive, but instead comes out as mildly startled…even somewhat nerdy. Well, it can’t strip off the glasses to reveal the superhero, but a few days with the E is enough to convince that there’s more to it than meets the eye.

The E320 is the embodiment of what a Mercedes should be: roomy, powerful and as solid as a bank vault. It shouldn’t look like a bank vault, as some previous models have, notably the previous S-class. Mercedes surprised the world with the E’s four round headlamps in 1995. It was the first Merc sedan to go for the sporty look, and here the attempt is not quite successful. The headlamps and curved fenders do have a Porsche look to them, but they conflict with the upright profile and angular rear. The 2001 model, with a lowered hood and slanted back headlamps, looks much better.

Another first for Mercedes is the 3.2 liter engine, the first V6 from the company. Merc replaced its famous inline-6s with V6s because of the more compact layout of the V6, which improves the cars’ crash safety. The V angle between the cylinder banks is optimized for a V8 but counter-rotating balance shafts help quell any vibration. There’s a single camshaft for each bank of cylinders, actuating 2 intake and 1 exhaust valve per cylinder. That valvetrain layout was chosen to help reduce emissions and fuel consumption. Two sparkplugs per cylinder fire in sequence, helping the fuel burn more completely, too.

This engine appears in nearly the whole lineup of cars, from C, E, CLK, SLK, M, to the S. For good reason, too. The torque delivery is quite adequate for any of those cars, and in the E it delivers 215 bhp and 315 Nm. That torque stays at its peak all the way from 3000 to 4800 rpm, and propels the car from 0-100 km/h in 7.9 seconds, according to company data. Twist the infrared key and the engine comes to life with a subdued rumble. The engine is whisper-quiet throughout the rev range, too, matching Nissan’s VQ for silence. When it comes to sound quality, however, the VQ growl at high revs still can’t be topped for spine-tingling noises.

We didn’t have much chance to test the E’s 0-100 times, but we did drive it through long stretches of Los Angeles suburbia, even on a trip to the “Happiest Place on Earth.” (No, not Las Vegas!) We didn’t doubt that the Merc could deliver on its claimed 7.9 seconds, as it easily overtook big V8-engined cars and SUVs on the freeway. The 3.2 may be more subtle than Nissan’s VQ, a kind of Mika Hakkinen to the VQ’s more vocal Juan Pablo Montoya, but like Mika, it’s just as effective.

The five-speed automatic is the ace up the E’s sleeve. The gearbox responds to throttle inputs decisively, with quick downshifts and nearly imperceptible upshifts. No need for a “manual override” device to manage the shifting—in this case, just leave it in Drive, and you’re set. Still, the gated shifter, a Mercedes mainstay for more than 20 years, proved its worth when needing to manually shift down. I was in the passenger seat when a friend was driving a long downhill stretch to her house. As the descent became steeper, she snapped the gearlever to 4 then to 3. With a touch of the brakes she shifted to 2, then flicked the car into her garage, all without having to look down at the selector. Couldn’t have been more impressed with either car or driver.

Also in Mercedes tradition, the go-faster pedal is firmly sprung and has a long travel distance, all the better to precisely regulate all that torque. Not that the chassis would blink even if you forced all of the engine’s torque onto it instantly. It always felt like it had much more grip in reserve, and it’s not surprising that it can handle even the 5.5-liter AMG engine’s 539 Nm (!). The E still takes the prize for solidity. The ride was magic-carpet smooth, and we didn’t hear any squeaks from body or interior from the nearly 15,000-km old car. Potholes and humps were filtered out by the suspension, and a soft thump was the only indication that the road surface had actually changed. The front suspension employs double-wishbone, the rear a multilink arrangement. Brakes are discs all around, actuated by a firm pedal. The chassis may already be one of the most stable around, but Mercedes added traction control and the Electronic Stability Program just to make sure it goes where it’s pointed.

The E employs rack-and-pinion steering gear in place of the venerable recirculating ball. Steering reaction has improved quite a bit from the days of the 260E. The 260E was surprisingly agile at high speeds, but you could feel its mass when plodding along to the supermarket. The E by contrast is much more willing to accept steering input, and the sluggish feel is all but banished even when we were just pulling out from a parking space. Turn-in is quite neutral—hardly any understeer, and the cornering is quite flat, too. There’s not much in the way of road/grip feedback from the steering wheel, but every degree of turn is smooth and precise.

Inside, the sedan lived up to the exterior’s solidly-screwed assembly. Fit and finish were faultless throughout the cabin. Our car came in the aptly-named “Elegance” trim level. With that option, wood covered the center dash and center console, as well as a strip around the doors. I don’t normally appreciate wood in a car, but admittedly this wood, which was indeed real, actually improved the interior’s ambiance. “Real reather” (as I once saw on the box for a replacement shift knob) covered the seats and door panels.

One of the joys of owning a series of Mercs (or, in our case, driving a series of them) is feeling at home even through several model changes, because the major controls stay the same. When I plopped myself on the reather—er, leather-covered driver’s seat, I faced a classic Benz cockpit layout. The three instrument groupings with familiar fonts for fuel and coolant status; central speedometer; and engine revs. The analog clock is gone, replaced by a digital display. A meaty four-spoked steering wheel has just the right rim thickness, and thankfully is not as large in diameter as these things used to be. Some ergonomics are still not as intuitive as a typical Japanese layout. The exterior light switch on the left side of the dash and window switches at the center console are not quite where they should be. The four toggle switches flanking the hazard switch are confusing similar. Also, all of those don’t quite have the sharp-click damping that the best Japanese switches have. Below that is the excellent push button heat/vent/aircon control, with split settings for driver and front passenger, then the stereo system.

Front legroom is a bit tight for a car of this size (4810 mm length). The dash and center console intruded into the front space for a snug feel. The front seats are adequately bolstered, and are controlled by a headrest-seatback-seat switch on the door panel. The pictogram is intuitive and very efficient, and there are even 3 user settings for both driver and passenger.

In contrast, the rear is roomy. Legroom and seat support are generous. The rear bench is good for three, and indeed there are three headrests and 3-point belts in the back.

The trunk, too, has adequate volume. The trunk lid “arms” are even enclosed so that they won’t crush your bags—this does reduce the space, though. Of note, even the trunk lid has an “expensive” feel to it: it pops fully open quickly and decisively.

There’s a wide range of E’s available, differentiated mainly by their engines, from the 2.2 CDI (diesel) just introduced here, to several displacements of V6 all the way to the V8s. The wagon version also makes a good case for itself in sheer space, if not quite in good looks.

So there we were, thundering down the freeway, with the view ahead underlined by those 911-fenders and three-pointed star in the middle. Evidently the E would be at home on any autobahn, autostrada, or EDSA, with its capacious interior, powerful engine and unflappable chassis. Which begs the question, why would anyone not want one? Price, for one. At $48,000 it’s worth several copies of equal-sized, though admittedly less-capable cars. Also, its little brother the C class looks a lot sportier. As an introduction to the rewards of driving a Mercedes, though, there’s no better place to start than the E320.

By Jason Ang | Photos By Jason Ang
Originally Published August 2001 Issue

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