Out for a drive tonight and passed by Mercedes head office in Toronto (about 2km away from home) and all alone in a parking lot is a new W204 (C350sport).

Having nothing else to do I sprinted home and got my camera and did a comparison shot between my car and the upcoming car.

Hope you all enjoy my thread, I wanted to do a take on key comparisons between old and new and thought that using my car was better than just taking shots of the new version. There are 5 parts of my 'photo essay' which are now scattered throughout this thread, part 1 is below, scroll down and you will see a total of 24 pictures in the series.

 

damn... when they're together like that the 203 looks so plain and... 'normal'...

 

awww dude it hurts my eyes to look at those pictures
it like seriously hurts to look at that comparison.

props on doing the first side by side shot!

 

here are some more

 

you're taking the knife and jabbing me over and over...

maybe it wouldnt hurt so much if you modded that thing up!

 

and some more

 

W204 is nice
think I am going to wait for the 1st update to upgrade...

 

Nonsense. Your car still looks just fine. Nice pics, btw.
There will always be some cat with the latest and greatest. If it bothers you that much, run the figures and do the math.

Until then, be satisfied.

 

never mind, just noticed the mud flaps

 

W203 body does look outdated.

But if you change your grill and upgrade to projectors, your front end will look better .

 

and more

 

please tell me you didnt sit there taking pictures until it got dark...

i hope you just went back at night and took more pics, well thats kinda weird too...

 

and finally some detail shots on the W204.

Hope you all enjoyed this comparison, I am sure that this is the only W204 on the road in Canada, surprised that they left it out all alone in the late evening

In response to some of the comments, yes I have mud flaps but I drive alot in the winter and north of the city on cottage roads which are gravel. Regarding the headlights, hard to justify spending lots of $ to change them, I'll wait until one gets broken.

 

If (like another poster said) you updated the front end a bit, I'd like your car better. For some reason I'm not a huge fan of the W204s yet. I'm sure they'll grow on me.

 

some of the dark shots are because my flash went off, I was there only for about 20min taking pictures

 

Summary of the evening:

Initially I was not a fan of the W204 when it launched, as well none of the pictures did it justice. After seeing it live tonight these are my conclusions:

1.looks way better in person
2. Much more aggressive looking
3. The stance is more prominent
4. The car looks more substantial
5. The car looks more expensive
6. It actually looks better than the current 3 series sedan (but not the 2dr)
7. The interior does look nice in real life and far richer looking, the example I looked at had nice wood treatment on the doors and console
8. The all glass roof is really nice and has built in attachments for a roof rack
9. The W203 looks old and plain, sort of how the W202 and the previous E and CLK look today
10. The rear still looks sucky, and all the propaganda about the vented rear lights to reduce drag and not use a spoiler...well the rear lights did not have vents and this car had a spoiler.
11. clamshell hood does not do it
12. Mirrors are like Dumbo's ears
13. The orange side marker looks like it was stuck on as an afterthought
14. Wheels were 18" staggered with 40 and 35 profile.
15. Brakes were sliding calipers made to look like 4pots
16. Seats are a carry over from the current C

 

odd that it had wood trim, because i thought the c350 sport had aluminum-ish trim, or thats what i thought at least.

 

Saw my first one on the highway while returning from an M-B meet in San Diego. He and I had just cleared some slowing traffic, and exchanged admiring glances. Since I’ve been accused of being a gentleman, I gave him the jump. During our impromptu encounter from 50 to about xxx, I easily walked two lengths after having started the deed at his flank.

We saluted each other and hustled down the road seeking our next victims.

The C63 will be an entirely different matter. Can’t hardly wait to drive that one!

 

Damn, if I knew that was gonna happen I would have never gotten off the 405 Oh well.

 

Dude, your car looks dated not because it sits next to a W204. It's because of your old school grille, non AMG front spoiler, frosted headlights and frosted fogs

 

I'll take your W203 any day !

that W204 looks like a Lexus and an S-Class got together, and someone slapped a fake Mercedes-Benz grill on it.

FUGLY !

 

The w203 is a timeless design, I guess 2 billion in research in development will do that to you.

 

I take your points above but even if I did those suggested, our cars' now really do look old and plain compared to the new version. I wanted to hate the new one but seeing it live, I couldn't. It has a substantial weight and build to it, and despite that I don't have all the add ons and mod'd mine, the over all shape of the car looks like comparing a marathon runner to a sprinter, skinny and light vs muscular and bulk.

There are several elements in the new car that don't look right and am sure they will be adjusted on the first update.

 

guess it's time to start modding your car.

but yah, W204 looks nice

 

I'll save the money to mod and put towards a new car. Don't want to throw good money to something that will be old and outdated. They posted on the canadian MB website a downloadable brochure and certainly the new car is contented up with: (all standard)

power folding mirrors
Sunroof
sport package
bi-xenon
headlight washers
rear folding seats
heated seats
rain sensing wipers
tire pressure sensor

All these were options and now they come standard and they are what I would rather have and missing from my current car