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| Mercedes-Benz
R-Class |
Broadcast
date : 9th April 2006 |
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The American Mercedes. That’s
what you may well christen the R-Class – the new Merc
cross-over vehicle that’s built in Tuscaloosa, Alabama –
at the same plant where the M-Class sets sale for world
markets.
The R-Class made its home-turf debut last October and goes on
sale in Europe around now.
Like its M-Class brother, it’s a full-time all-wheel-drive
machine and features a similar engine line-up – the 200
kilowatt V6 or the faithful 225 kilowatt V8.
The R-Class Mercedes has a few features we haven’t seen on
Mercs for a while. Most notable is that the centrally-mounted
gear-lever has given way to a steering column stalk – just
like the old days when we used to refer to this system as a
column shift.
The seven-speed auto ‘box – standard with both V6 and V8
engines – can also be manually shifted by steering-wheel
mounted buttons.
The other unique selling point on the R-Class is its
seating-for-six configuration, which makes this a long car –
about 5,1 metres – but handling is sporty, thanks to big
diameter, low-profile wheel and tyre combos, double-wishbone
front and multi-link rear suspension, and all-wheel-drive.
Optional is Airmatic suspension, which can also raise the ride
height by some 50mm for rough roads.
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The V8 will take you to a 100 in
under 7 seconds and on to the regulation 250 km/h. In case
that’s not enough an AMG R-Class version has just been
announced at the Detroit show.
All in all, quite stylish, although, visually at least, we
still prefer the Euro-elegance of the E-Class Estate.
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