All Mercedes-Benz cars could carry off this title with aplomb. The C180 Automatic elicits it from Adil Jal Darukhanawala by virtue of pure bewitchment a la ravishing looks, impeccable manners, fine interior appointments and not to forget, really strong mid and top end performance. Now if they could only address the low end shakes it would be the car for not the dream merchants alone but also for those who have their feet firmly planted on the ground.
 
Scene 1: Going through the twisty ghat roads leading to Saputara from Nashik and then descending into the Dang forest on the other side, the baby Benz is serenely smooth, purring away with precious cargo (my two kids in the rear seats and wifey beside me) onboard. That they shouldn't be disturbed in the least bit was as much a challenge as keeping my basic instincts (of taking corners at a fair clip) in check. The C180 Automatic pitched in to help.
 
Scene 2: On NH8, trying to hotfoot it to Mumbai in time for closing this issue. Starting from the outskirts of Bardoli in Gujarat at 6:30 in the evening, I faced a challenging drive to Mumbai, having done the earlier, and longer (441km) trip from Pune in the morning. But the C180 Automatic delivered, whizzing me into the Tata Infomedia HQ at Prabhadevi in a shade under four hours, the 273 kilometres having been easy meat for a car as much at home in the city as it is on the open roads.
 
Scene 3: Out with Aspi Bhathena on the fuel efficiency runs. With the air con on she delivers 9.8kmpl and 13.8kmpl with the air con switched off (not an easy prospect with ambient temperatures hovering in the 45 degree Celsius region). Not bad for a two-litre car weighing closing to a tonne and a half.
 
One could go on and on with many other actual first hand experiences of the new C-class cars. I have mentioned these three to graphically illustrate what stuff the latest car sporting the three-pointed star is capable of. OVERDRIVE had tested the manual transmission versions of the C180 petrol and C200 CDI in its last issue. When we were offered the C180 Automatic we pencilled it in for a full-fledged road test with Aspi Bhathena once again at the wheel for the performance testing and data acquisition. While yours truly used it for four days in a (sur)real world kind of test, at the end of which I was promising myself, for the tenth or 12th time that I would never ever allow a car to get under my skin!
 
Yes, that's what this 'affordable' baby Mercedes does to people who have sampled it to the extent we did. I wouldn't like to add to or repeat what my colleagues have mentioned in the comprehensive twin test in the last issue in describing overall style and design, mechanical aggregates, underpinnings, interior and build. However I will try to convey the high levels of dynamic ability one can possibly enjoy, either as driver or occupant. And shed light on how well the automatic transmission-ed version of the C180 performs with the facts and figures which are manna from the heavens for a majority of our number crunching readers.