First Drive Review
Mercedes-Benz has been delivering new models by the litter lately. For 2005, we counted nine new Mercedes variants, ranging from the entry-level C-class for thousandaires to the $456,000 SLR for billionaires. All of them were of determinate gender--sedan, wagon, SUV, and so forth. But now the German automaker has given birth to a mutant that's hard to categorize--the 2006 R-class is neither sedan, wagon, SUV, nor van, although it has bits and pieces of each.
The five-door, six-passenger R-class might be considered a crossover, but that definition fails because it applies to SUV-ish vehicles that emanate from passenger-car platforms. The R doesn't. It's based on a much-modified version of the latest Mercedes M-class SUV's unibody platform. Although it's built at the same state-of-the-art factory in Alabama as the M, the R shares little with its plantmate. The driveline is pretty much the same, but in its major dimensions there's no similarity: The R's 126.6-inch wheelbase is 11.8 inches longer; overall, the 203.0-inch-long R tops the M by 14.8 inches, and it's 6.3 inches lower and 2.3 wider.
Mercedes is tagging the R as a "sports tourer," a catchy but mostly vague marketing phrase that doesn't resolve the R's identity crisis. But ambiguity aside, the R is nothing if not big. It's about four inches longer than a Cadillac Escalade or Chrysler Pacifica, with which the R can be said to share some conceptual traits. And at a height of 65.2 inches, it is nine inches lower than the former and 1.3 inches closer to the ground than the latter. It weighs about 4800 pounds in V-6-powered R350 form and 4900 in the R500 V-8 version.
All this mass is wrapped in sheetmetal that doesn't look much like anything else on the road. The sharply angled hood flows from a leading edge that wouldn't appear out of place on a Mercedes sports car. The arc of the roofline is reminiscent of the company's provocative CLS500 but for the hatch-hinging kickup at the rear. And the sculpted character line that runs from the front-wheel openings to the tail end is also a bit CLS-ish. These wedgy-roundy elements give the R an eye-catching look in an eccentric way, as if George Barris had chopped and sectioned a minivan.
What's most van-like about the R is its floor plan--three rows of seats that coddle a six-pack of adults in the sort of comfort and luxury one has come to expect from a Mercedes. The driver's row has the look and feel of an S-class sedan, and the second row is about as spacious, with seats that adjust fore-and-aft as well as recline. The third row is roomier than that found in most SUVs and is fairly easy to get to, although women wearing short skirts might find modest entry and exit to be problematic.
With all the seatbacks upright, there's only enough cargo space in the back to carry a few cases of pinot noir, but with the second and third rows folded flat and the rear console unlatched, the cargo area is long enough, but not quite wide enough, to inhale four-by-eight-foot sheets of building material, as unlikely as that might be. There are also lots of places to squirrel away stuff in the R--console bins, door pockets, and so forth. And in a major philosophical reversal, Mercedes has admitted that cup holders aren't just a bit of American lunacy; the R can be had with as many as eight of these Big Gulp repositories. Among the many choices of entertainment gear, there's an iPod dock in the glove compartment.
Aside from the frills, the working environment of the R is well thought out, and most of the controls are deducible without resorting to the owner's manual. An exception would be the cocktail-stirrer-sized shifter on the steering column. Actually, it's an electrical switch: Flick it up for drive, down for reverse, and push to park. To shift gears manually, there are a couple of rocker switches on the back side of the steering-wheel crossbar.
Driving with the automatic transmission in manual mode is a bit like operating a BlackBerry, since there are seven gears to continually cycle through, each so closely spaced that the experience is more aural than physical. You can't feel the shifts, but you can hear the engine reach for the high notes. The 5.0-liter V-8-powered R we sampled ran up and down the scales without breathing hard, even though its 302 horsepower doesn't seem up to carrying the R500's two-and-a-half tons. Neither did the poundage appear to affect handling. We didn't encounter many switchbacks over about 200 miles of Alabama countryside, but the R500 handled high-speed sweepers with little noticeable body roll and didn't pitch excessively under braking. The R's agility and balance--aided by standard all-wheel drive--belie its size. And it has that indefinable gravitas that's so Mercedes.
All this, Mercedes says, can be had for "under 50K." Well, maybe not all. That sum buys an R350 with a 268-hp, 3.5-liter V-6 and a fair array of standard equipment. But if you opt for an R500 with a suitable combination of option packages--there are eight to tempt buyers--you're looking at around 70 grand. That's about what you'd expect for a top-of-the-line Merc, even if you can't figure out exactly what it is.
