Opinion: this Mercedes is (almost) the perfect family car
September 05, 2025 by Mario Christou
Car changing is a big deal
Senior reviews writer Mario Christou has spent a week with the Mercedes C300e Estate, and he thinks that more families should consider a wagon for their next motor – instead of a big SUV
The Mercedes C-Class needs little introduction, having been a thorn in the side of the BMW 3 Series since the 1990s; long before the Mercedes GLC, BMW X3 and Audi Q5 SUVs became the darling cars of families looking for a posh, practical set of wheels.
While it may not have anywhere near the road presence of a hulking 4×4 with an enormous grille or aggressively-sloping roofline, living with a C-Class Estate for a week after a GLC Coupe reaffirmed something I’d almost forgotten – the humble family estate car is a far nicer car to live with.
The bigger GLC may be rather handsome, but I wouldn’t call it much better looking than the C-Class. In fact the smaller Mercedes got far more compliments from friends and family than its larger sibling, with its sharper nose, crisper light shapes and more distinguished silhouette.
It’s not as though the bigger, more expensive Mercedes has a nicer cabin, either. Much like a matryoshka Russian nesting doll, open up the C-Class and you’ll find a near-identical interior to the one you get in the GLC; swoopy centre console, crisp infotainment graphics and pretty vents on top of a plush, trimmed dashboard.
Some of the material quality lower down is questionable, with scratchy plastics on the doors and near the seat bases – and the C-Class has a weirdly small foot rest – but otherwise the cabin is very upmarket and pleasant to be in.
There’s lots of space in the C-Class Estate, with highly adjustable front seats, plenty of useful cubbies to keep items hidden away and enough headroom and legroom in the back for tall passengers to feel comfortable.
The boot is an adequate 490 litres in most versions, but if you need all of that capacity then avoid the PHEV which loses a whopping 130 litres of space to the car’s batteries.
But the C-Class’s real advantage compared to an SUV such as the GLC comes in the way it drives. Around town it’s far more comfortable, with only the sharpest, deepest potholes thumping through the cabin; other rough sections of road are simply ironed out. Visibility is far better when manoeuvring, and the lighter steering is less taxing when in a tight space.
You get a better motorway experience in the C-Class Estate too, because its suspension is even more adept at absorbing blows at high speed while the well-insulated cabin keeps wind and road noise at bay. It feels stable on a country lane, even around sharp bends, but the steering doesn’t offer much feedback so the practical Mercedes is never all that fun to drive, yet still gives you enough confidence to carve through corners.
All of that, combined with the fact that you’ll pay £15,000 less for an entry-level C-Class Estate compared to a base-model GLC, or £20,000 less than you would for a GLC Coupe, and picking the estate car is a no-brainer, really, unless you’re adamant to be behind the wheel of a big, imposing SUV.
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