Video: 2015 Mercedes-Benz C-Class -- 2014 Detroit Auto Show

Let's see what's changed. C class has traditionally stood as the entryway into Mercedes. But there's a new car for that called the CLA, which is actually bigger than the outgoing C class. Not to worry, the redesign you're about four inches longer but thanks to extensive aluminum, about 220 pounds lighter than the outgoing C class, it looks the part of kind of a junior S class, which is what the C class has always kind of tried to do, especially in the rear here. The taillights really emulate Mercedes flagship sedan. Overall, a pretty good look. Pretty well proportioned front to rear I think. Mercedes calls the interior quote unquote high class, and I got to say it, it does a pretty good job of that materials. Very nice in this new C-Class consistent materials all the way down to foot level here. There's a center screen here that perches on kind of a tablet like surface, works pretty well. Mercedes has been doing that for a few years, now. There's a new touch pad here that perches kind of atop Mercedes familiar command interface can do things like pinch in and out to zoom in and out on the map, you can swipe sub menus here, pretty intuitive there. Although this screen is close enough that it could just be an ordinary touch screen too. And we wonder why Mercedes doesn't integrate that functionality in as well. Now the automaker says that the additional wheel base in the new C class does great things for backseat leg room. We're going to check that out. I want to talk about front seat room a little bit here first though. 'Cause the last C class was kind of cramped, especially in terms of headroom. It's okay. Actually I'm about six feet tall and I have enough room here to sit with the seat all the way up. And the seat goes back far enough here so that people who are 6' 2 ", 6' 3" should have enough room to drive. Let's check out that backseat. Backseat has pretty good head room actually, given that this car that we're in at the auto show has a panoramic moon roof, which often cuts a little bit of headroom for the front and rear seats. Leg room is okay. The biggest complaint here is that the seat continues to sit pretty low to the ground, which means that adult's knees will be kind of up here dangling in the air, typical for this class, but wish Mercedes had improved a little bit on that. Kind of a cool feature in the trunk here. There's this shelf here that you pull out and you can store some things in here, but if you really want to go nuts with it, you push it down and you can actually put groceries and things in there. It contains them, keeps them from moving around while you're driving. And then there's this, this button here snaps the bag back up, which means you could like launch things at people from there. Gasoline powertrains for the C class will include a 235 horsepower turbo, four cylinder in the C 300, as well as a 329 horsepower turbo V6 in the C 400. Now Mercedes formatic all wheel drive system will be offered first When the car launches this fall in 2014. There will be rear wheel drive versions offered after that stay tuned for all that and more closer to the cars on sale date. (engine revs)