It would have been nice to make it to a 10th anniversary, to celebrate a full decade as a contributor to this august website. Oh, that a man might know / The end of this day’s business ere it come! / But it sufficeth that the day will end / And then the end is known. My first contribution to TTAC appeared on December 20, 2008. This is the last one. I’m not quitting the business; you can find me at Road & Track, Hagerty Magazine, Watch Journal, Bicycling, Popular Mechanics, Zoom-Zoom Magazine, and a few others. It’s time to move on to work on some other projects.

Oh, well. Let’s enjoy our final moments together. Come with me as I open the throttle on Mercedes’/AMG’s mild underachiever of a three-liter twin-turbo V6 from the Thai border to Hatyai and from there to Hua Hin. The speeds are outrageous, the 7-Elevens along the way are serving hot sandwiches, and the monkeys that hang from cages mounted to late-model diesel Hiluxes are giving us quizzical looks.

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Mercedes-Benz’s C-Class line maintains a steady stream of customers by being attainably aspirational. A dignified, confident car, the C-Class doesn’t feel the need to be something it’s not. Watch a realtor pull up in one, and a feeling of quiet assurance falls over the would-be home buyer — certainly, not the same feeling you’d get after seeing them pull up in a CLA.

In a bid to maintain this respectful relationship, Mercedes-Benz has a host of changes in store for the refreshed 2019 C-Class sedan. These niceties are now bound for the coupe and convertible variants, too.

Isn’t it nice to talk about an honest-to-goodness sedan, coupe, and convertible, each carrying the same model name? (Read More…)