For some reason, auto journalists are prone to favor station wagons. Not all of us, of course. But enough that when Mercedes-Benz announced this week that it’s releasing an Estate version of the C-Class, it’s been the leading item on Google News for Mercedes-Benz, and every major publication wrote about it, mainly to say that they already want it even though they haven’t driven it.
The 2015 C-Class Estate will not be coming to America, but that doesn’t mean Mercedes-Benz doubts that there will be demand for it. The station wagon will provide three four-cylinder gasoline engines, four diesel engines (two of which will be hybrids), and larger V6 engines later on, not to mention a probable plug-in hybrid version. Right there we have about 10 possible engine configurations for what many in the U.S. believe to be a dying breed of vehicle. It suggests to us that there is plenty of appreciation left for station wagons in the world, only that America is a bit behind the times.
The video announcing the C-Class Estate shows the car quite well. As an extension of the C-Class, its lengthy proportions do justice to the C’s bottom-heavy body, and put that bottom to good use by letting the voluminous trunk expand. We couldn’t help but find Mercedes-Benz’s video of the Estate’s cargo space a bit unusual, however.
After talking a fair bit about how the Estate lets emotion meet “functionality” and “class,” the video shows a man loading his rather large model helicopter, blades and all, into the rear trunk. A helicopter? Is that really a hobby? Perhaps our lack of model helicopter flying is why the Estate is going to literally anywhere on earth except the U.S. The man uses the open trunk as a bench as he happily steers his helo through the desert air, and the camera cuts to a woman in a tailored business jacket driving her Estate because presumably she has something better to do than pretend to fly.
In any case, we love station wagons and appreciate the E-Class Wagon that we do have in the U.S. Perhaps you would like to try it, as well.