Mercedes-Benz C 220 Bluetec Sport estate UK first drive

The new W205 Mercedes-Benz C-Class we road tested only recently, but this time in its new estate format.

Due in UK dealerships next month, the wagon is the second model built on the MRA platform, and many of its attributes – the longer 2840mm wheelbase and lighter weight, for example – are carried over. 

Its design though, is all new. As is the now-standard addition of a powered tailgate, roof rails and rear seats that split 40:20:40.

The estate shares the saloon’s three-trim line-up (SE, Sport and AMG Line) and is offered initially with three engines: the 182bhp C 200 petrol sitting alongside 168bhp C 220 and 202bhp C 250 BlueTec diesels. C 200 and C 300 oil-burners will complete the range before the end of the year. 

On test here is the mid-spec C 220 Bluetec Sport with the overwhelmingly popular 7G-Tronic Plus automatic transmission.

Highlights from the kit list include park assist, a reversing camera, heated front sports seats, two-zone climate control, cruise control, DAB tuner, sat nav, seven-inch display and 17-inch alloy wheels. Privacy glass (£265) and leather upholstery (£795) see the £34,060 price tag of the standard car rise to £35,120. 

The wagon is new from the B pillar back, and, aesthetically speaking, that’s where some of its problems start.

Mercedes will not appreciate hearing it compared to a hearse, yet from the wrong angle (i.e from 5ft 8in high, looking at the back, side-on) there’s definitely something regrettably suggestive about the estate’s mismatch of roof and window line. 

Its rivals – especially those from Volvo and BMW – are undeniably better looking. But neither lives up to the C-Class’s superior internal ambience.

If the exterior takes Mercedes striven-for somberness to funereal levels, the interior bats it effortlessly back toward supreme tastefulness. Save for a stuck-on infotainment screen posing as a cheap tablet (and the utterly woeful Garmin satnav system that appears on it), the innards are polished, brushed and tenderized to a premium tee. 

That much we knew from the saloon, of course, but the estate better rounds off the experience with the appreciable addition of airiness to the rear.

Not that the more commodious ceiling adds a significant amount of extra luggage space with the seats up: the estate being only 15 litres larger. It doesn’t fix the C-Class’s slight stinginess on legroom either.

It is much more accessible, though, and if you tug on the boot-mounted seatback triggers, there’s 1510 litres of near-flat loadspace on offer – more than you’d find in a Volvo V60 or 3-series Touring. 

To drive, the estate doesn’t particularly alter the W205’s sensitivity to spec or its dynamic inferiority to the BMW. Featured here (despite the Sport trim) is the conventionally sprung ‘comfort’ suspension, making the C 220 plumply refined on the motorway, decently cultured on smooth A roads – and then, over biting, uniquely British obstacles, a little more baffled than expected.