Mercedes C180 SE CAR review

Four cylinders? A manual gearbox? Not traditionally attractive territory for a Mercedes, especially if you’re talking petrol rather than diesel. But Mercedes hopes you’ll go for this car rather than BMW’s 318i ES, and pay a couple of grand more for the extra 12bhp and 14lb ft afforded by the Merc’s supercharged engine.

Taxi spec doesn’t do it for me...

Times have changed. The base-model Merc is no longer poverty-stricken. Of course, you’ll pay extra if you trawl the options list for sat-nav, leather seats, park assist and so on, but the SE runs on attractive alloys, wears pleasing cloth on its seats, plays your CDs, controls your cabin climate and even tempers your over-exertions in corners.

And over-exert you may, because 154bhp is enough to make the baby C-class feel brisk. And there’s just enough feedback through the controls to make exploiting it all worthwhile.