The vehicles I've owned in my adult life haven't reflected that hankering. They've been practical and inexpensive, because my Scots blood can't abide with the thought of spending more money than absolutely necessary. I also prefer efficient cars, because...well...the planet isn't exactly cooling. Still, the desire remains, and where my day-to-day is functional, every once in a while, I'll rent something that scratches my itch for power and comfort.
So when the wife said, "hey, let's rent a car for our upcoming road trip to Nashville," I knew exactly what I wanted. We were travelling just under two thousand miles total over nine days in a rambling VA-NC-TN-KY-WV-PA-WV-MD-VA loop, serving up a mix of mountains and long stretches of superslab, and nothing but nothing is better at devouring miles than a Benz.
The best of the Benzes is their flagship S Class, particularly in its W222 form, which was produced from 2014 to 2020. Big, luxe, comfy, and powerful, it was a land-yacht designed for the Autobahn. With a standard four -liter twin-turbo V8 putting out a nudge over four hundred and sixty horsepower from beneath that long hood, it's serenely capable of humming along all day at 110 while your seat gives you a hot stone massage and lightly perfumed air wafts through the cabin. It's the sort of car driven by old-money patricians and Russian oligarchs.
Back when people bought cars, that is.
Americans don't really drive cars all that much these days, preferring Compact Utility Vehicles, SUVs, and light trucks. We like to ride high, and the long low sleekness 1980s-me had always assumed would be the norm for future cars in the 2020s never came to pass. That means taller and blockier profiles, which means aerodynamic inefficiency, which bites deep into our national fuel use.
That comes at a cost as we travel the wide open spaces of our nation, and I was reminded of this as I reviewed the fuel consumption data at the end of the trip.
That big ol' Benz, with which we...er..."made good time"...over mountains and plains, as state after state whisked on by?
Over the whole trip, it averaged just a notch over 27 miles to the gallon. That means, excessive and powerful though the car was, it was more efficient than the average American light vehicle, which...according to the EPA in 2022...got 26.4 miles to the gallon.
With two of us in the car, we got more Person-Miles-to-the-Gallon than had I taken the same trip alone in a Prius. It was nearly twice as efficient as flying.
Not, of course, that being ecologically minded was the point of our trip, but it was a peculiar truth to encounter.
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