Mercedes-Benz E-Class Cabriolet – cinch Weekend Wheels

There are few ways to feel more smug during the UK’s colder months than when behind the wheel of a Mercedes convertible equipped with Airscarf technology and heated seats. While, to onlookers, your decision to lower the roof in November would be erring on the side of automotive insanity, you remain toasty aboard your leather-clad Mercedes thanks to the heat being blown onto your neck and pressed around your backside. So long as it’s not raining, you’re effectively driving down the road in an open-top luxury living room on wheels. Bliss.

While other brands now offer their own versions of the system, Mercedes-Benz was a pioneer of the neck-warming heater system, which it calls Airscarf because it negates the need for an actual scarf. In the E-Class Cabriolet you see here, it – along with those heated seats – would mean a weekend promising to barely dip into double-digit temperatures could still include much topless motoring. And if there’s a most British way to celebrate the arrival of a couple days off, it’s embracing your convertible in the run up to December.

Of course, there’s a lot more to the E-Class Cabriolet than a few heating systems. This full-sized saloon-turned-drop-top, a rival to the likes of BMW’s 5 Series and Audi’s A6, comes with a range of effortless engines, an interior swathed in soft-touch materials and the sort of on-road demeanour that oozes style over brashness. The 2019 car we have here is an elegant machine that beautifully mixes the digital technology of a recent 21st-century car into a more traditional base. To some, that will sound like motoring perfection.

With Mercedes’s latest widescreen digital infotainment system and a whole lot of leather loveliness aboard, this E-Class feels as premium as it is. But with an efficient 2.0-litre petrol engine under the bonnet, it promises mechanical running costs and fuel efficiency more comparable with a lower-priced hatchback. Sure, that turbocharged E350-grade engine has a healthy 299hp and this car comes dressed in sporty AMG-Line trim, but the E350 is quite happy to run quietly and smoothly all day long. Imagine rolling up to your local pub with the roof down for a Sunday lunch in this. Lovely.

It gets better. While this car is only two years and 15,575 miles old, it’s available on cinch for £37,450 – about £15k less than these E-Class Cabriolets go for new, and that’s before options are added. There’s a serious saving to be had – and, thanks to cinch’s thorough inspections by highly trained technicians, you can rest assured the car is as fine in real life as it looks in the pictures. Best of all, it could be outside your front door in as little as one week.

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