In the middle of nowhere really, the new Mercedes-Benz E-Class has shown up - the BMW 5-Series is about halfway through it's model life, the Audi A6 is a few years fresher, but just about all of it's competitors are now a few years of age, at least. So the new E-Class has to stand out, streak ahead, and leave a significant distance behind it's rivals. Which I'm not sure it will do.

I shouldn't really be surprised. The current E-Class is subtle, yet capable rich-person transport, but bland in comparison to just about everything except the Lexus GS. And even then...

But I really did have my hopes up this time, because the new C-Class has discovered a rather youthful image, and now far surpasses the BMW 3-Series in terms of style. This car borrows similar design language - it has a quite aggressive front bumper, angled door handles, a more sloping waistline, and a nicely sculpted rear bumper with integrated trapezoidal twin exhaust pipes. Unlike the C-Class, which has two different grille designs, depending on which spec you choose, the E-Class has two differently designed steering wheels, depending on which spec you choose. Uh... cool, right?

It also features new safety systems, among which is Attention Assist - my favourite because it assesses the way you're steering the car, and if it thinks that you're steering in a drowsy manner, it will beep at you. Wahoo - now we have a car that tells you that you're sleepy. I think it'll probably just end up telling all the bad rich drivers that they can't drive. The new E-Class then, picks out good drivers from bad (oops, I mean "drowsy") ones, and beeps horribly if you suck. But other things are more concerning.

If I look front-on at the car, for a moment, I think I'm looking at a Maybach. Which, despite the Maybach being worth a bazillion times more than an E-Class, is a very, very, very, very, bad thing. Really. The Maybach has been ridiculed all over the world for being the most distasteful form of billionaire limousine transport available. But I digress.

The rear lights look like they were nicked from a Volkswagen Polo Sedan. I mean, couldn't Mercedes have been slightly more inventive? Perhaps they just wanted to play it safe. And that's the conflict in this car: although it attempts to become more youthful, it knows it has to play ball with all the tame, stately rich types who normally by the E-Class. Fearing consumer backlash, Mercedes have made this car more hip, but not very. They played it safe.

And that's why it's all a bit confused and contrived. So does it have what it takes to put the A6 and 5-Series to shame? I don't really know - the 5-Series is ageing horribly, but the A6 might still pip this for looks I reckon. And then there's the Jaguar XF, which I've forgotten about. The competition are getting tougher, but have Mercedes kept up? Let me know what you think.

Oh, and can I just say: what the heck is up with the chick that's posing with the car in these pictures? Is this the new target market perhaps? Skinny alien women with ridiculous hair and their legs permanently crossed?

NEWS: 2010 Mercedes-Benz E-Class with Split Priorities

China is a very new automotive industry, and global carmakers all want a piece of what will, inevitably, be the largest market in the world. So you can imagine the furore when General Motors bosses back in Detroit noticed that one of their cars - the Daewoo Matiz - had been blatantly copied (remember that GM owns Daewoo...) by a tiny Chinese company, Chery, which had at the time existed for only six years.

Exhibit A: The Chery QQ. It has a choice of two wonderous engines: a 0.8 Litre, 38kW engine, or an absolutely bullet-like 1.1 Litre 50kW version. It is 3.5 Metres long, which is about half a metre shorter than a Mazda2. And it is cheap. Very cheap. The equivalent of about $8,000 - depending on where it's sold.






Exhibit B: The Daewoo Matiz. Probably best known to you as Kel's car in the sitcom "Kath and Kim". Probably not the best car to copy, but the Chinese thought otherwise. It had almost identically gutless engines as the Chery (0.8 Litre/37kW and 1.0 Litre/47kW), weighed little more than the average American, and went from 0-100kmh in 18 seconds. A Ford Focus will do it in less than half that time.



But the Chery is a real oddity - something that doesn't come around very often. One could argue that in these modern times, with advanced industrial techniques, robots and so forth, that a "bad" car - and I mean truly bad, even worse than a Kia - doesn't exist. But you'd be wrong, because the Chery QQ exists. Complaints about the QQ have flooded the internet, among which a owner bemoaning the loss of his iPod touch after the in-car USB dock fried its internal hardware. I find it odd that that guy could afford an iPod touch, but could not afford a better car than a Chery QQ. The iPod touch would have cost almost as much.

I know what you're wondering. Is this monstrosity available in Australia? Thankfully no. But we can laugh at the rest of the world, for now. Take this extract from Singapore motor review website OneMotor:

"In our test car, where the lower part of the centre console and dashboard meet, you get a smooth, flush interface on one side, and a gaping, uneven gap large enough to poke your hand through on the other. Comical."

So it ain't the best quality. But you get what you pay for, right? Yeah, I guess. Still, you can't deny that it is the funniest copy of an equally stupid original car. General Motors were, in truth, really angry about the copy, even though they really probably shouldn't have given a stuff about it. It's only a Daewoo Matiz after all. But the QQ is still being produced and sold, even though GM in America threw a tantrum - want to know why? Because Chery is a Chinese Government-owned corporation. The USA government couldn't afford to upset them, so GM's cries of plagiarism fell on purposely deaf ears. Even though GM Executives demostrated very publicly that the doors on the Chery QQ and Daewoo Matiz are interchangeable without any modification.

Apparently, Chery has conceded that for more success, it shouldn't really copy other people. So this was part of a statement released on one of their European english language websites:

"Chery, the eighth on size the motor-car manufacturer of China, is persistently torn to foreign markets, type of Northern America, Malaysia and the Europe where its{her} strategy of the low price should be popular. To make it, in Chery have realized, that they should stop to do{make} the latent copies of cars of other manufacturers carrying badge Chery."

I couldn't make up anything so retarded if I had tried.

But I maintain that this car should not be still on the road - any road, anywhere in the world. It is an accident waiting to happen. And when they do, you had better not be in a Chery QQ. It's EuroNCAP rating is no more than 0 stars. None. In a frontal collision at 80 kilometres per hour, the likelyhood of walking away unhurt was 0%. Chance of death was 70%.

Don't believe me? Check out these two EuroNCAP crash test pictures. The left picture is a frontal crash test of a MY2000 Daewoo Matiz. It achieved 3 stars, and assessors were reasonably satisfied with the way the passenger compartment maintained its shape (aside from the windscreen), and protected the occupant, considering the size of the car. The picture on the right is a Chery QQ. Note the extensive use of red on the diagram - this means severe damage and poor protection.

The pictures speak for themselves. It means that not only have the Chinese copied a crap car, they have made a car significantly worse than it. And although it begs the question: "why did they make this?" - I simply look at the crash test picture, with the door falling off, and go: "WTF man, how is this even allowed?!?!"

WTF?! #4: The Copycat Chery QQ