Traffic? Who cares when you're in an E 260

Primastuti Handayani and Novan Iman Santosa, Jakarta

Who can resist an offer to test the luxurious Mercedes-Benz E 260? Although our schedule was full, we finally managed to accept and on Monday morning a silver E 260 Elegance was waiting for us.

The latest E-class continues to retain its "four-eyes face", the light and grill design characterized by angles and ovals. However, the back end has evolved into a sporty-yet-sleek form with softer curves and new tail lights.

Entering the cabin, the car was spacious enough. Once seated the driver can push a button on the door and the seat automatically adjusts to a memorized setting.

The silver car has its interior designed in the same color, giving an it elegant look.

All functions on the dashboard can easily be operated through buttons on the steering wheel, while the driver can check other information using a small screen in the middle of the speedometer.

We took the car, dubbed the "heart" of the German carmaker's products, on a stroll through the capital's streets. The stroll, however, quickly became a crawl. It was just half an hour after the morning's three-in-one traffic policy ended and soon enough we became trapped in congestion along Jl. Sudirman's fast lane. Jealousy filled our hearts as we saw a bus speed up on the exclusive busway lane.

If only we could drive across into the bus lane -- like Vice President Hamzah Haz did a few months back -- and we would have been able to test out the performance of the car's engine.

Since the only way to get out of the traffic was to take the toll road, we took it. Unfortunately, this road was also jammed.

In our travels we used the D drive mode of the car's automatic transmission. Carrying a six-in-line cylinder 2,597cc engine under its bonnet, the car has maximum output of 177 horsepower at 5,700 revolutions per minute (rpm) and a maximum torque of 240 Newton meters at 4,500 rpm. It can accelerate from zero to 100 kilometers per hour (kph) in 8.9 seconds.

Although the brochure says the car is able to reach a 236 kph top speed, the road rules, conditions, and of course the traffic, prevented us from reaching that speed. The fastest we managed was a naughty 140 kph, already in breach of the legal 120 kph toll road limit.

When we finally made it back to the Semanggi cloverleaf, we climbed the bridge to enter the toll gate heading west to the Ancol Dreamland hoping to take some good photographs of the car on the Marina.

When we arrived, however, there was a sign forbidding pictures to be taken. Well, perhaps those rich people didn't want their yachts to be pictured for "security reasons".

We found a nice, empty street inside Ancol for our photo session. After having lunch we hit the road again, heading east to the Jakarta-Cikampek toll road.

While we could not push the pedal to the metal, we tried the cruise control with a variable speed limiter on the toll road but only for few kilometers because of the influx of other traffic.

We found the car gave its best performance at higher speeds and was less responsive the slower we went. Using the tiptronic transmission in the manual mode improves the response, however.

The fuel consumption of the E 260 is quite economical with an average of 10.7 liters for 100 kilometers or more than nine kilometers a liter.

Regarding safety features, the car contains five three-point seat belts, more than enough to satisfy the police who are currently enforcing the seat belt rule. To help prevent severe injuries, airbags with multistage deployment logic are fitted for the driver and front passenger and sidebags and windowbags are also available.

Other advanced technology that helps the driver control the vehicle in emergency situations includes a stability program that helps the car to steer out of a spin. The brake assist function recognizes an emergency stop and uses electronic braking to stop you quickly in conjunction with the standard anti-lock braking system (ABS).

Entering a bustling new town, Lippo Cikarang, we were once again trapped in a jam. It was already 2 p.m. We had no other choice but to turn back for home.

Luckily, we managed to avoid the three-in-one policy, which started at 4 p.m. Otherwise, we would have had to pick up a joki (paid "passenger") in this Rp 769.5 million (US$81,862) car or get ticketed by the police.