‘MRA’ is the new initialism for those amused by the occasional game of platform architecture bingo.
Standing for ‘Modular Rear-drive Architecture’, it was applied first on the C-Class but has gone on to serve underneath many of Mercedes’ bigger rear-drivers as well.
It allows the car to be about 100kg lighter than its predecessor, model for model, with an underbody constructed of almost 50 per cent aluminium, a lightweight material that’s still rare in compact executive saloons. The car is 95mm longer and 40mm wider, new for old.
The six-speed manual gearboxes fitted to entry-level models are new, and the seven-speed 7G-Tronic Plus auto (which more than 80 per cent of C-Class buyers choose) is kept on.
The range of engines consists of 134bhp 1.6-litre, 168bhp and 201bhp 2.1-litre, four-cylinder turbodiesels in the C 200 d, C 220 d, C 250 d and C 300 h models respectively, and a 181bhp 2.0-litre turbo petrol in the C 200 and C 350 e, while the range will be headed up by the 3.0-litre V6 C 43 and the 4.0-litre V8 C 63. The coupé and cabriolet models come with the same engine range bar the hybrid models and the inclusion of the C 300 - which uses the same 2.0-litre petrol engine but produces a hefty 242bhp.
