We’re here today to raise awareness for luxury-car hood ornaments. As grille-mounted badges try to push hood ornaments into history, we stand tall with them?above the radiator, of course.
Nowhere is this a battle more clearly evident than at Mercedes-Benz. Despite having the most enviable logo in the automobile industry, the three-pointed star, Mercedes designers prefer to affix it to thick-ribbed grilles. Message: “We’re fresh! We’re sporty!” In previous decades, giant central stars were primarily fixed to Benz coupes and roadsters. Now every model has one, mood lighting optional. Only the C-, E-, and S-class models continue to sprout a hood ornament. But let’s be real, is there anything truly sporty about a non-AMG Mercedes sedan" If it were our money, we’d take the 2017 E-class in its most elegant form, with a badge-less, thin-lined chrome grille and a hood ornament reminding us, at every stint behind the wheel, how much we’d spent. MODEL: 2017 Mercedes-Benz E300 4MATIC (base price: $55,575; as equipped: $63,895)
The new E300 is $950 cheaper than the outgoing E350. A 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder replaces the 3.5-liter naturally-aspirated V-6, so power is down significantly from 302 horsepower to 241, yet the 273 lb-ft of torque remains the same, but is delivered at lower revs. A lower curb weight and two more gears (the automatic is a nine-speed) will help offset that power deficit, but we still expect that th...