Steve Cropley Selling the S-class to the Martians
MONDAY
I’d been starting to fear I’d end the year without a decent drive in the latest Mercedes-benz S-class, for whose ancestors I have the utmost respect, having amassed around 60,000 miles in two venerable S500 long-term test cars. Today, the chance arrived and I grabbed it, using it for an (appropriate) trip to Mclaren to hear about the company’s new, deeply impressive customer racing and young driver development plans and for various other near-london errands, adding up to a 150-mile drive.
This was an S500, too, powered by a new 450bhp 4.7-litre twin-turbocharged petrol V8, and it was magic. So smooth, quick and refined, of course, but also amazingly easy and agile. It simply didn’t feel like the biggest Benz at all. There are so many functions in cars like this, so many gadgets and capabilities, that it’s easy to lose your sense of what matters most. The thing I know best about this car is that were I to encounter the proverbial man from Mars, and need to choose him a really wonderful example of a motor car, this is what I’d choose.
TUESDAY
A while ago, I swapped my BMW battery-electric motorbike for the latest model, complete with extra poke and a longer range. Now it’ll do 100 miles on a three-pin tickle that takes barely two hours – which just shows the practicality of light, small electric vehicles. Between 20km/h and 40km/h (which is 12mph and 24mph) this is the fastest-accelerating motorcycle that BMW makes, which says even more about your battery bolide’s full-torque step-off.
The point I’m trying to make, though, is how the extra range has changed my behaviour. I now enjoy the bike’s performance to the full (no one can touch you off the lights) because I’m confident – as I never was on the old 60-mile version – that I’ll get home. I used to ride like a vicar on a Vespa. Now I can give it the beans and it feels terrific.
WEDNESDAY
Probably enough said on Mr Hammond and the daft diesel part of his budget, but I can’t resist. His new rules apparently ensure that every new diesel attracts extra tax, simply because the regulation with which the latest, best and cleanest cars must comply (to avoid the announced tax hike) hasn’t even been framed yet. This is beyond stupid. One of the things we still do best in this country is to build engines, including great diesels. We’ve already set reasonable limits for the demise but the motor industry has to earn a crust in the meantime. This idiot has set out deliberately to torpedo it, for no gain. I’ll bet he couldn’t even say why.
I used to ride like a vicar on a Vespa. Now I can give it the beans and it feels terrific
FRIDAY
When everyone was boasting about the capabilities of the new Honda Civic Type R, including labelling it ‘Autocar’s finest hot hatch’, I stayed very quiet because I hadn’t driven one. It’s always the same around here. When something really great arrives, there’s a stampede and these days I’m too polite to use the elbows. Still, my chance arrived today and I can see just what they’re talking about, even if I won’t be practising 5.7sec 0-60mph sprints or investigating the 169mph top speed, although the engine’s muscular and lovely. What lodges is this car’s amazing ride, which manages to be extraordinarily supple and composed yet firm and rock stable. It is plain brilliant, behaving as if a king’s ransom has been spent on the tyre/damping combo. Perhaps it has. Which makes the fact that such a car fits inside £33,000 seems even more of a miracle.