Twirl with Benz ballerina

And, let me say, it just feels damn good to chart a course through the unsettled waters of our heavily-trafficked highways and byways enjoying the easy comforts offered by a Germanic drawing room on wheels.

Of course, when I say "big Benz" I mean the proper kind with a longitudinal engine up front driving at least the rear wheels, if not all of them, so, sorry all you A- and B-Class Benz owners, but keep trying.

Now it might be stating the obvious but the most striking thing about this new E-Class and it is very new, not just a case of spring cleaning and rearranging the pictures like they did for S-Class is its styling and if this car does not make a statement then probably nothing will.

It is sharp and incisive, with angles that work with each other and a personality that projects well ahead of the car to give it an on-road presence most others couldn't climb over.

Pronounced fender blisters front and rear those at the back accentuated even more by distinctive style lines flowing backwards to blend into the tail lights merge with a rising waistline that sets off the tall and quite spacious glasshouse.

From the front the coupe looks like a sorta-sporty Benz should look: that long nose drooping downward to meet the deep front airdam/bumper and the whole thing set off by a heavy three-bar grille, and big 18x8-inch alloys.

Unfortunately, the 'E' coupe also wears the biggest corporate motif in all of creation with a vast three-pointed star sort of cast into the grille. Mind you, the Mercedes-Benz driver who rear-ends anyone (if he or she can ignore the warning beeps, bells and flashing lights that warn of impending disaster, that is) will brand the other car for life.

Mercedes-Benz Australia did not muck about when it came to our test car and rather than shovelling us into the 3.5 litre, V6-engined E350 model they put us straight into the E500, giving us some serious forward firepower, squeezing a 5461cc (let's just call it 5.5 litres, shall we?) V8 under that long nose.

Not that there would have been too much grief with the V6. It is good for 200 kilowatts and 350 Newton metres after all but with two more litres capacity, two extra cylinders and eight extra valves, the V8 makes 85 more kilowatts and 180 more Newton metres of torque.

It also emits a bit nicer grumble from its exhaust pipes than the 'six' as well.

And there is another odd thing about the Benz: from the driver's seat you know it is quick but you really don't care that much. Yes, the spec sheet handed out by the company boasts of a 5.4 second 0-100kmh acceleration time and a 210kmh top speed and with some cars you might be impressed but with this car you take it as a given.

Perhaps the most impressive item on this car is the seven-speed automatic transmission which is smooth to the point of being almost unnoticeable and completely linear in its power delivery.

You also take as a given the fact that if Mercedes-Benz is prepared to give its heavyweight some serious clout it is also going to give it some suspension finesse, some deftness. Sort of like a car version of Wendell Sailor, big and beefy but with agility to go with it.

So it goes without saying the 'E' gets a fully-independent arrangement with links and a MacPherson strut arrangement at the front, multi-links at the back, coil springs on each corner and nifty electronically-controlled dampers to top it all off.

The end result is a blend of powerhouse and ballerina, a car that isn't too delicate nor too bull-at-a-gate yet one that is able to hold its own and won't embarrass itself on a winding, twisty road.

What it loses on the handling it makes up for in ride quality by providing the sort of platform stability that fits nicely between being too firm and sporty at one extreme and way too soft at the other end.

Yes, it will be too soft for some and way too hard for others but most should find it fits their expectation for a powerful, quasi-sports coupe.

Dear reader, I am not going to bore you with the really technical stuff, the details about adaptive lights that see around corners, reversing cameras, blind spot detectors, driver fatigue detectors and the Pre-safe system that quickly prepares the cabin for an emergency landing should it become instantly necessary.

What I will tell you is that it all works (OK, we didn't test the Pre-safe and I was happy not to do so) and that the sooner it makes its way into lesser cars (just like a lot of safety equipment pioneered by Mercedes-Benz did) the better we will all be.

I will also tell you that on the occasions when I used the radar-assisted Distronic cruise control I didn't like it because it is just too damned adaptive! Set it for a speed and it will sit there until you come upon a slower car, at which time it will slow to match that car's speed.

Should a car switch lanes right in front of you the Distronic will slow quickly to match vehicle speed which is not good if you have a car making cruise missile pace on your back bumper. I did. Luckily his brakes worked really well.

I can also tell you that I loved the coupe's interior, its comfortable yet surprisingly supportive front seats (we didn't try the back pair because really, who sits in the back of a coupe?) and its instrument and switch layout that looks impressively complicated but really is not.

What I didn't love was the company's desire to put the cruise control stalk and combination stalk (windscreen wipers and washers, indicators and high/low beam) on the one side of the steering column.

Yes, I managed to not only "flash" another driver with the cruise control stalk but also use it instead of the indicators a couple of times. Sorry 'bout that folks.

The trip computer/sat nav/audio thingie? Mercedes-Benz should take a leaf out of the Audi and Lexus books and simplify the unit. We are still trying to figure out how to tune into Fogey FM!

But overall the E500 is a car to both admire and enjoy and the truth is we found it one of those rare cars one we really did not want to hand back when our allotted time was up.

Yes, it makes you feel like a car snob and yes, it makes you look down your nose at everyone else on the road but the fact is it is simply an excellent car to drive.

MERCEDES-BENZ

E500 COUPE

PRICE

$174,500 (before statutory and delivery charges)

DIMENSIONS

Length ................................................4898mm

Width ..................................................1786mm

Height ................................................1397mm

Wheelbase .........................................2760mm

Tracks (f/r) ........................1538mm/1544mm

Turning circle ......................................10.95m

Weight ..................................................1695kg

MECHANICAL

Fuel-injected 5461cc V8 with double overhead

camshafts and four valves per cylinder. 285kW

at 6000rpm, 530Nm at 28004800rpm. Sevenspeed

automatic.

CHASSIS

Front, longitudinal engine, rear-wheel-drive,

power-assisted rack and pinion steering, powerassisted

four-wheel disc brakes with anti-lock,

brake assist and electronic stability control.

18x8-inch alloy wheels, 235/40 front and 255/35

rear tyres.

SUSPENSION

Independent links, coil springs, electronicallycontrolled

gas dampers and anti-roll bar front,

independent multi-links, coil springs, electronically-

controlled gas-filled dampers and stabiliser

bar rear.

FUEL TYPE/CAPACITY

95 RON/66 litres

FUEL ECONOMY

11.0 l/100km (ADR 81/02 combined average)

CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS

256g/km

MAIN RIVALS

Audi S5, BMW 6-Series