As I mentioned earlier, I never liked them.
They all seemed to have the ugliest blue/grey leather interiors.
And lets not forget the very suspect build quality of the late nineties cars.

 

Draft stop?

 

Yes. It ensures the rear passengers cannot play this:

 

I think that's an error - this must be for the Cabriolet.
The text is a cut paste.

 

Ah so you won't be called up then?

That is the longest list of options I have seen in a long while. Thank goodness you left off the second page ...

Enjoy Steve

edit: I see others have picked up on this option ...

 

It seems very nice and M-B are very fine cars to travel in - GLTWit!

Have you learned to stop yet, for no reason other than to stare at something & with no signal & completely oblivious to the tailback and inconvenience you are causing? I believe there is a button so it can happen at random. Maybe that's Draft Stop...

BTW, the W213 is something of a return to tradition (ugly but imperious) for M-B. The most disappointing was E-Class was the W210 (Garfield eyes by Einar J. Hareide) which replaced Bruno Sacco's simply timelessly elegant W124. Mind you, squashing up the S-Klasse to make the W123 only resulted in a big Humber Sceptre that was no way as elegant or clean as Paul Bracq's W114/8, so there's clearly a hit/miss/hit thang going on there...

 

Congrats old man

Any car that upsets polemicist is fine with me.

 

I have to say it doesn't photograph too well.
Its a bit like the other ugly car I own, the RS250 Megane.
Both look far better in the metal/plastic than in any picture.
Something to do with the light and reflections I guess, plus my 'close-in short lens' mistake (again).

There is very little intel on these anywhere, even the owners groups.
So I thought a little info might help a passing soul one day whilst hard at it on Google

Saw the first 'other' one today near Preston - the estate version in the same Iridium Silver.
Better looking than the saloon in fact.

Now the rear boot badges are off it looks much cleaner from the arse end.

Steve

 

Yes Martin, it was a hoot getting in it to drop the delivery guy into town...
"Erm.... I know its auto but where do I select Drive, mate?"


It's column shift now.

Really it is a great idea as you can flip between Drive and Reverse (or Neutral) with a fingertip.
On the end of the stalk is a push button for Park. Its just like an indicator stalk.
The weird MB 'foot brake' thing takes some getting used too though. I keep leaving it on by accident.

And throw in stop/start and its initially baffling.
I do admit to sitting like a bemused twat at the end of my road, engine off, wondering why it just wont 'go'
This must be the phenomena that Nick refers too - and I'm getting old.

All good fun though, and typically German in it's logic.

If you doze or your concentration wanders whilst motorway driving, it knows. And beeps to remind you.#

Get too close to the car in front or close on it too fast, visual warnings then alarms.

Big brother, but in a useful way.

 

Column gearshift - it really is going back to the past!

I was reading about the auto in the Glas 1700 yesterday; that had a column toggle that you could use to 'flick' between forward & reverse when manouvering.

That was really interesting, in that it was perhaps the first production 'automated manual' (building on ideas Prof. Fesser was exploring at Borgward, before they selected the british Hobbs gearbox) and you could watch the stubby floor lever move itself as it changed gears! It must be a direct ancestor of the BMW automated manual, since they took over Glas.

The M-B New Actros' box can be linked to the sat nav, so it prepares to change down in order to anticipate hills. So their cars are all a bit primitive, really...