A few short words on an accidental road trip in an S class, by Geoff Buys Cars:
For a number of reasons we decided to part ways with the family wagon, aka the blue Volvo 940 that we have poured so much time and effort into. Although we love the car, I have 3x Volvo estates right now and as the 940 was both the car with the most money in it and the least economical, it sort of made sense to list it for sale. (More on that and it’s Swedish replacement soon)…
Shortly after listing it for sale a chap from ‘ooop North’ got in touch and we struck a good deal for both of us. Not wishing to hang around, and with nothing particularly planned, the next morning we jumped in the 940 and S Class and aimed both cars north.
A few hours later the Volvo was delivered to Ian, so we took the S Class on a big coastal detour to a very wet and grey Colwyn Bay, then Llandudno.
After an afternoon of sight seeing, arcades, candy rock and coffee, we pointed the S Class back to Worcestershire and arrived home 12ish hours after we set off.
Over 375 miles the big barge achieved 42.5mpg, which is impressive for a large car, but most impressive (and if you have kids you’ll agree) was how well the car did ‘family stuff’.
Oodles of space, simple controls, simple display, effortless comfort and a well designed cabin made the car an absolute joy. No moaning from the front seats or back, especially after the kids discovered they had a 12v charging socket each hidden in their respective door cards.
A multitude of buttons and lights kept them entertained, and after spending so long in the car, I just… get it.
The W220 S Class is the generation before software and touch screens ruined the in car experience. Yes it has a touch screen sat nav and audio system, but it’s easy to use, and basic.
More so the display on the dials is simple, the menus aren’t overly complex and the display itself is elegant, perfectly lit and easy to read day or night. It made me question where modern cars have gone, and how this constant quest for ‘advancement’ has been such a journey backwards.
Cars from the early 2000s offer a peak of automotive accomplishment just before the rapid descent into overly complicated cabin electronics. You could say a W220 S Class for a couple of grand is a risky choice for a family car, but how many warning lights will your 3 year old SUV throw after 60,000 miles, and how costly will those be to extinguish?
Sure, the suspension might be expensive to fix if it goes wrong and there’s a myriad of potential electronic problems with this S320 but all of the important stuff works a treat, and on a miserable, typically welsh day when the clouds are damp (and not far above your head), the sky is greyish black and the air is cold and wet, I can’t think of many other cheap cars id rather pilot than a big comfortable Bavarian.
The diesel lump might not be as quick from the lights or up to 60mph and beyond as the petrol S430, S500 and S55, but with the sort of driving that your average trip involves, does that matter?! There wasn’t really the call for speed or acceleration today, and at no point did I think ‘this car really needs a whopping V8, I’m not going fast enough and that fuel needle is moving far too slowly’.
On the motorway I watched from the cabin of the Volvo as a 2003 BMW 730D cruised past MrsGeoff and the kids in their 2004 S Class, and stylistically the Mercedes won hands down. I always found the W140 and W220 S Class a bit too big for their silhouette, like the designers penned the E class and said ‘yup, that’s perfect, we will just have to do what we can with the S Class’, like they neither car ever quite… worked.
The W140 was / is an ugly brute, looking awkward and too industrially heavy on all but the largest of alloy wheels… the larger proportions of the S might make it less elegant than the E for both generations, but the W220 S Class sure carries the Mercedes design language of its day better than the equivalent 7 Series. On the small 16 inch wheels the S Class just works, understated and sort of anonymous looking yet utterly capable and still impressive.
I couldn’t live with the looks of a W140, despite the legendary reputation for build quality, and there’s no engine in the W140 range that performs as an all rounder like the S320 of the W220 era.
375 miles is a good stretch to get to know a car, and the way the dashboard elegantly flows around the doors is just wonderful. The wood is perfect and feels like it’s giving you a big hug as it stretched across the centre console and curves towards the door handles. It’s the sort of thing you wouldn’t notice if you hadn’t spent all day staring at it…
Mercedes cars from the early 2000s are notorious for questionable build quality, but thankfully the S Class still has some of the substance that the modern brand is founded on. Go from a 2003/4 S Class to a 2003/4 CLK or SLK and the difference in fit, finish and feel is huge.
The S Class that followed grew more butch and angular as Mercedes moved into a different era, chasing aggressive styling and abandoning the world of delicate curves and flowing style for harshly bulging arches and straight lines.
Don’t get me started on modern Mercedes and BMW design language because both brands seem to have lost the plot entirely. Aside from the CLS shooting brake, it’s been more than a decade since a good looking car left Stuttgart.
So what we have here is the last of the understated big saloons, fitted with an easy to live with engine and a perfectly usable all rounder.
All yours for a couple of grand.
An unplanned, unscheduled, impromptu road trip that the car took in its stride.
If you have read this and you’re not already opening a new tab to find yourself an S320CDI on eBay… you should be.
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