Mercedes-Benz C300 vs Mercedes-Benz S500

What's the difference?

Australia's relationship status with the Mercedes C-Class has long been… complicated.

Over 40 years and five generations, the German midsized luxury sedan has been a paragon of efficiency and safety on one hand, but on the other, well, the quality and ride comfort haven't lived up to brand expectations.

Now the completely redesigned version has landed in Australia, with shrunken S-Class limousine styling to take on not only the BMW 3 Series, Audi A4 and Genesis G70, but rivals as disparate as the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Tesla Model 3.

The question is? Is this latest, sixth-generation, new-from-the-ground-up C-Class good enough to take on all those and more? Let's find out.

Imagine a car that can pretty much drive itself, if you let it. And it’ll do that while you get a massage, pump some Beyonce, and enjoy the fragrance of a field full of flowers… And then, it can teach you to do stretches and exercises in the driver’s seat.

It may sound like fictional fiction, but it’s factual fact. And it’s the Mercedes-Benz S-Class 2018 model, which has taken the so-called ‘wellbeing’ of the driver to a new level.

The facelifted model has seen plenty of styling changes and some tech upgrades, and while making the flagship car in a particular brand’s line-up is often a task fraught with issues, the German company’s big, expensive, luxurious, limousine is undoubtedly a more thoughtful car for 2018.

But just remember, its predecessor was considered - at least for a little while - as the best car in the world by some automotive journalists. 

Now Mercedes-Benz has updated it, and it reckons it’s better than before, bringing a bunch of new technology, new engines, a reworked model range and, perhaps not essentially, but still pleasantly, lower pricing.

Read on to see how Beyonce factors into the equation.