When the weather is nice and you want to go for a cruise around town, no doubt you start to think, “I should have gotten a convertible.” But then you remember that you still need a comfortable daily driver.
Rather than having a second car, one for your daily commute and one for when you want to go have fun, Mercedes Benz has your back, with its refreshed C300 Cabriolet.
Mercedes Benz always has been focused more towards luxury than its rivals, and it shows in the cabin of the C300 convertible.
The leather is the same high-quality material you’ll find throughout the rest of the Mercedes line.
The infotainment system has seen a slight update from the previous years. The gauge cluster is now fully digital, but a bit different than the more expensive models. Rather than just a screen that is connected to the main infotainment screen, it is in a separate enclosure that looks like the more traditional gauge cluster. With that you get the full customizability that the other models get and the new steering wheel that allows you to glide through the menus to easily adjust each setting.
One aspect of the C300 that Mercedes Benz did put a lot of time into updating is the safety features. Prior to the 2019 model year they already were very good in tis category, and could be relied on to protect you when conditions got bad or the traffic came to a sudden stop. Now all of these features have been enhanced and even more have been added. The ranges of all the sensors have been increased and reaction time has been decreased.
There also is a new driver assist that offers some self-driving features. One of these is an active lane change assist which determines when it is safe to change lanes and do it for you without you having to even do anything.
The engine has undergone a second look by the Mercedes engineers and it now is more powerful. The turbocharged two-liter, four-cylinder engine now makes 255 horsepower and 273 foot-pounds of torque. While not an earth shattering amount of power, it is enough to have fun and keep the fuel efficiency out of the gutter at 21 mpg city and 29 mpg highway. Driving the C300 Cabriolet is definitely enhanced by the lack of a roof and it feels faster than it is.
Because the Cabriolet is based of the C300 Coupe, rear space is less than the sedan. The Cabriolet has only four seats while the sedan has seating for five.
Some of the trunk space is sacrificed on the Cabriolet to make room for the top when its down. The sedan has 12.6 cubic feet while the coupe has 10.5 cubic feet and the Cabriolet only has 8.8 cubic feet. This still is more than enough room for a large trip to the grocery store or even a longer trip with two suitcases. The front seats are unchanged and there still is plenty of space for its most frequent occupant, you.
Pricing for the C300 starts at $41,400 and the C300 Cabriolet starts at $53,850 before you get to the ever-plentiful list of options.
The C300 cabriolet I was given had every option, even one of the many shades of gray for which they charge extra. The final MSRP on my test model was $70,725 and that is within range of some serious competition not just from rivals, but even within Mercedes Benz.
Grant Miller is the publisher of Miami’s Community Newspapers. He may be contacted by calling 305-662-2277 or via email at Grant@CommunityNewspapers.com.
