Mercedes-Benz C-Class 230 Avantgarde road test : Six appeal

The sound a car makes can make a fan out of the unbeliever. There have been times when I’ve heard a loud car while walking the streets of Mumbai and have stopped, trying to make out what car it was, only to see a taxi going past, its driver in a hurry to ferry his passenger to the destination. In a country full of cars powered by four cylinders, the offbeat burble of a crossplane V8 is like manna from heaven. Even the strange there-are-aliens-under-the-hood sounds that emanate from diesel V6s are preferable to the frankly ordinary sounds from other engines. Does the C230 Avantgarde pass the aural test? We put it in neutral, floored the throttle to find out, and did it again, because we didn’t believe our ears. It was like prodding a sleeping tiger in it’s eye – the tachometer needle gathered momentum as it raced around the dial, stopped only by the rev limiter. Accompanying the snarl from under the hood was a shimmy from the body on its springs, much like a muscle car. This was going to be a fun test!