
Price | ₹ 62.78 Lakh onwards |
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Engine | 1950 to 3982 cc |
Transmission | Automatic (Torque Converter) |
Fuel Type | Petrol & Diesel |
Seating Capacity | 5 Seater |
The Mercedes E-Class has been India’s favourite premium executive sedan. Launched in the late 90s, the various iterations and generations of the E-Class have always been enticing the Indian buyers. Now the new E-Class has moved on to its fifth generation and is for the first it is being sold as a LWB. It is available both as a petrol and diesel model for the Indian market.
Mercedes had invested almost a billion dollars into developing the W212 facelift we have now and the W213 carries forward the design cues. The E-Class has always been different from the S-Class and the C-Class, but the W213 blends in. The grille is upright and pronounced while the lines are curvy and flowing. From a distance the only thing that would give away the E-Class from the S and the C would probably be the alloy wheel design. However, the E-Class is now much closer to the S-Class in terms of length as it a long wheelbase version.
The interior too is brand new. It is more in line with the latest Mercedes interiors we have seen with the new S-Class and the C-Class. It feels bright and roomy and gets the new touch panel controller for the infotainment system. The instrument cluster gets two analogue dials for the speed and the EVS and a screen between the two to read out all the vital information. Dual zone climate control, cruise control, automatic headlamps, rain-sensing wipers are going to be standard along with the power adjustable front seats with memory function.
The W213 Mercedes E-Class will probably usher the straight six engines back on to the Mercedes assembly lines globally. For us in India, the car has been fitted with the 3.0-litre V6 diesel engine and the 1999cc petrol engine. The former develops 255bhp of power and 625Nm of torque while the petrol engine produces 181bhp/300Nm. Both are offered with the 9G-Tronic gearbox. The new E-Class will compete with the BMW 5 Series, Volvo S90, Jaguar XF and the Audi A6.
Mercedes-Benz E-Class price starts at ₹ 62.78 Lakh and goes upto ₹ 1.53 Crore. The price of Petrol version for E-Class ranges between ₹ 62.78 Lakh - ₹ 1.53 Crore and the price of Diesel version for E-Class ranges between ₹ 63.86 Lakh - ₹ 79.63 Lakh.
Versions | Ex-Showroom price | Specifications | Compare | |
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E-Class E 200 Expression | ₹ 62.78 Lakh | 1991 cc, Petrol, Automatic (Torque Converter) | Show price in my cityGet Offers | |
E-Class E 220d Expression | ₹ 63.86 Lakh | 1950 cc, Diesel, Automatic (Torque Converter) | Show price in my cityGet Offers | |
E-Class E 200 Exclusive | ₹ 67.24 Lakh | 1991 cc, Petrol, Automatic (Torque Converter) | Show price in my cityGet Offers | |
E-Class E 220d Exclusive | ₹ 68.33 Lakh | 1950 cc, Diesel, Automatic (Torque Converter) | Show price in my cityGet Offers | |
E-Class E 350d Elite | ₹ 79.63 Lakh | 2925 cc, Diesel, Automatic (Torque Converter) | Show price in my cityGet Offers | |
E-Class E 63 AMG S 4MATIC + | ₹ 1.53 Crore | 3982 cc, Petrol, Automatic (Torque Converter) | Show price in my cityGet Offers |
The E-Class exudes the perfect image of comfort and luxury. It provides the best rear seat ambience in segment and plays the role of a family car better than its rivals. Mercedes has an edge over competition in terms of after-sales network and service, making a buyer not think much before going for this impressive luxury sedan.
“Why would anyone be so thrilled at the sight of a grey four-door sedan?” You would wonder. But this was no ordinary family sedan.
There is no treading shrewdly on this hot summer afternoon. My first encounter with the Mercedes E63S AMG involved climbing into the back of a truck trailer and reversing it rather gingerly. Once unloaded, I got out and took a step back as it burbled at idle with a deep resonance.
“Why would anyone be so thrilled at the sight of a grey four-door sedan?” You would wonder.
But this was no ordinary family sedan. Perhaps I am in the minority, but if you ask me, the E63 with its flared haunches, quad exhausts, yellow brake calipers and carbon ceramic discs the size of extra-large pizzas, looks pedantically exotic. The looks alone might rationalise the E63’s presence in this year’s CarWale Track Day, but it’s mostly that absurdly powerful twin-turbo V8 and the tricky all-wheel drive system that eventually left us all in shock and awe.
For this year’s Track Day, we have come up with an extra dose of number crunching. Most readers are familiar with the ‘lap time’ test that we have been running over the years but this time around, we upped our game and added the 0-100-0 test which evaluates both horsepower and braking in equal measure. Speaking of horsepower, making 612bhp from a 4-litre motor is pretty impressive. However, what’s really difficult is putting all that power to the ground without smoking the tyres. And to give the E63S a fair chance to put its metal-twisting torque to the pavement, we installed a brand new set of sticky Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres for more traction.
No messing around here, the E63S AMG is devastatingly fast off the line. With Ameya at the helm, it smashed past the 100kmph mark in 3.91 seconds. For contrast, the much lighter two-door GT C took 4.05 seconds. What’s amusing though is that it takes minimal effort to holeshot the E – hold it on the brakes using your left foot, throttle flat to the floor, lift off and boom! You are off to another dimension. “Traction off the line is unbeatable thanks to the all-wheel drive distributing power across both axles in milliseconds. I like the 9-speed auto as well. It delivers lightning fast upshifts and drops gears in split seconds as one goes hard on the brakes”, Ameya explained.
Paired to 402mm (read as massive) carbon ceramic discs, the use of Michelins in this test also paid off, helping the E63S set its quickest time of 6.64 seconds. That’s it! That's the time it took this big and heavy four-door sedan to accelerate from zero to 100kmph and back to zero. As for distance, the E ran a total of 97.01m, losing out only to the AMG GT C.
It’s difficult to believe that the E63S makes 612bhp and 850Nm of torque, until, of course, you floor it. The whole thing simply hunkers down as it spears towards the horizon with that raw, bellowing soundtrack. We love coming to the MMRT every year because it’s a perfect automotive equaliser – it’s got recurring sweeping corners which favour pointy, light weight cars whereas the long back straights give powerful heavyweights like the E63S a chance to make up time. On our flying lap, the brutal acceleration certainly mattered, especially when flying past the start-finish straight and punching out of C3. Over the long straight that followed, there was simply no stopping this hulk of a sedan – peak power comes in at 6,500rpm, however, it’s the surprisingly wide torque band that makes the E63 a giant killer. You get most of the 850 torques from as low as 2,500rpm, all the way till 5,000rpm which means this thing pulls hard no matter what speed or gear you are in. In fact, on the two long straights before C4 and C8, the E63 pulls like the most powerful locomotive there ever was, but it’s when you drop the anchor at speed that you realise the weight – if you brake hard and flick the wheel at the same time, chances are you will shift the weight far too forward and run wide. As a result, executing a clean run demands just the right amount of steering lock and using the strong brakes to curb speed in corner entries in order to aide trajectory. Once you learn to follow this specific way of hustling it, the E63S is remarkably obedient to shift its bulk around the track.
The second half of the MMRT is where the Merc really shines, especially at C8 which is a 90-degree right-hand corner that’s shortly followed by a similarly angled off-camber left-hander. Here, the E appeared surprisingly agile in the hands of Ameya who pointed out that its chassis is unfazed by the smack of a curb or off-camber turns. However, given all that weight, it’s easy to overwhelm the grip from its tyres if you enter a corner too hot or power out of the mid corner because at that point, the car is tipping on its nose with a lot of weight over the front axle. In the end, the E63S AMG pulled a 1m 57.37s lap time which is frankly unbelievable given its weight disadvantage. Better still, in the right hands, this car can take three more people and perhaps pull a sub 2-min lap time still. Take that, Vento race car!
Does the new E63S live up to the AMG badge? Absolutely! And more so at a racetrack where there is so much to explore. Everything from the beautifully weighted steering, the powerful brakes to the sheer roar and pull of the V8 make it so addictive. After all, gathering the E63S up is a big part of the tussle – no matter where you point it, it pulls itself forward with more force and you invariably end up hitting the braking point with more speed than you would anticipate, at which point the chassis, tyres and the brakes work overtime to keep you off the grass. It’s all part of the neurotic experience of hustling the E63S around a race track which, again, is highly addictive. Think of it this way: it is currently the best of the fast four-door heavyweights, one that defies our fundamental understanding of speed and handling.
Pictures by Kapil Angane and Kaustubh Gandhi
Mercedes-Benz E-Class 2021 is available/sold in the following colours in India.