Mercedes previews the coming 2015 C-Class, and how it will fight BMW

Next year, Mercedes-Benz will reveal the all-new version of its best-selling car, the C-Class, and already the suits from Stuttgart have started to bang the war drums. The BMW 3 Series remains the monster in the closet for the Mercedes C-Class, but then there’s also the not too shabby Audi A4/A5, Cadillac ATS, and a future Jaguar XS lineup that will no doubt rock a bit.

Mercedes has decided that the best way to defeat these worthy rivals is with…perfume.

I jest, but the point is that, as on the new S-class, Mercedes must vastly improve the interior quality appeal of the C-Class. The goal was to develop an interior passenger experience that feels light years more inviting than a severe schoolmarm smacking you with a sobering ruler on the knuckles becoss it ees gut for you. So, as a preview, Mercedes let me play in various trim levels of their new C-Class interior — a space that could easily be mistaken for a modern sculpture garden.

Per the aforementioned suits, the new C-Class will be built “to set the bar higher in this highly competitive segment” and claim to be “lighter weight, more fuel efficient, but yet more luxurious, powerful and sporty."
Saying that the C-Class interior upgrades from the current economy class into business class is such a tired expression, but valid. I liked sitting in the more stylized and easily comprehended front-passengers zone of the longer, wider C-Class, now code-named W205. Gone are the multitudinous buttons that have been damning all C-Class interiors for years, including the archaic push-button phone interface of the center stack.