Mercedes Benz cars driving day

I have been rather absent with this Blog for the best part of this year, but have come back to try to resurrect it. Anyway the first post goes like this........

Media driving day's organised by the Mercedes Benz Press office

Mercedes Benz World Brooklands

In the last couple of month’s I have been invited by Mercedes Benz to join them in their Media driving days. The first of which was held on Sunny day in September at Mercedes Benz world.

This day was mainly based around their AMG range, so basically muscle cars. The first I drove was the ML  63 AMG 4matic. I have to say I am not a fan of “Chelsea tractors”, they are fine for farmers and others who need their off road abilities, but for doing the school run or the shopping totally crazy.

Being use to driving much smaller cars, all be it in the past Mondeo estates and similar, I still found it massive. As I drove out of Brooklands the sheer size of the thing made me feels apprehensive. Out in the traffic, the higher view point was great, but I think I am a boy racer at heart and like to be close to the ground.

Away from my personal feelings the car is unbelievable, you have a 4x4 capable of going across a field of mud, with a racing car at its heart. Scary!. Admittedly the off road capabilities I didn’t test. However I have photographed many M class Mercs going through the 4x4 course at MBW, in the course of my work, performing this task well.

Stats wise. This model has a V8 4 valves per cylinder 5.5 litre petrol engine, linked to a AMG speedshift plus 7G-Tronic automatic gearbox. Producing 0-62 in 4.8 secs and a top speed of 155 MPG, but add the AMG driver package and it will do 174.

Considering the vastness of this car its urban MPG is 18 MPG with extra urban coming in at 29.4 mpg

For all this car, the basic model will set you back. £82,995.00 include Vat. The car I drove has a fair bit on it and this will set you back a mere £104,815.00.

Next, came my favourite car of the day. This was the SLK55 AMG. This is a 5.5 litre V8 AMG engine. A 0-62 of  4.6 secs and reaching a limited top speed of 155 mph. This was a muscle car that has been tamed, though if you wanted to you could release its inner animal.

There is a price for all this, but at 54,965.00 GBP on the road, maybe not quite as much as you might think. However the car pictures come in at 63.225 GBP .

This is due to options such as driving assistance package, which has active blind spot and assist lane keeping, as well as  a panoramic vario-roof with magic sky control. I didn’t  get to test this as I had the roof down the whole time, but it would be great in the winter when you want to see the sky but keep warm.

Unfortunately the roads around Weybridge other than the M25 and the A3 don’t lend themselves to high speed driving, and you don’t want to go crazy with speed on the M25, but this car feels happy around town, like a pussy cat. I think if I really wanted to enjoy this car the road for me living in the south would be the A24. It would truly tell me how great it really is.

It is a great open top two seater sports car all in all a great car.

The final car of the day was the biggest monster of the lot. The SLS AMG Roadster. A 6.3 V8 that growls. This is no pussy cat and it lets you know that.It can get to 62 in 3.8 sec and keeps going all the way 197 mph. Not that I could try that out or anyway near it.

One thing you do know you are in a real racer. Driving through the lanes, the car just hangs on and you glide like you are on rails around the corner. The interior on the car supplied is in Two-tone designo leather upholstery, which feels great. It is the ultimate sports car. Probably best on the track, but great on country roads, but watch out for the potholes.

What gets you when first sitting in it, is the sheer size of the bonnet, it goes on for every, and you really feel like you are sitting in a cockpit.

That said you need to be pro footballer or similar to afford it, as it has a basic price tag of £176,925.00, and with the added options on this car there is the carbon fibre package which consists of  AMG carbon-fibre trim along with trim panels on seat backrests, sides of  seats and door sill panels. Price £6,000.00. Bang & Olufsen BeoSound AMG. Eleven high-performance speakers with two illuminated tweeter lenses £5,055, plus other options, pushes this car to £195,895.00.

Get your wallets out now.

The second Mercedes Driving day was a more sober affair, and something that is very close to me Economical cars. Though no one said they had to be boring and they certainly weren’t.

The average 0-62 of the cars I drove was 7.5 secs, and this was squed up due to the B class having a 0-62 of 10.7. Whereas if you took this out . The average without the B class is 6.7 secs from 0-62 secs. Sorry if I’m hung up about this, but for diesels, that is incredible. Now the bad bit the average urban fuel consumption again for these four cars, but it’s not bad, it’s  43.65 and this includes the massive S class. That is incredible.

The Diesel Cars.

C250 CDI BlueEfficiency AMG Sport Saloon.

I am in love with car. Not just this one but the C class in general. I was given the opportunity back in 2010 to have one for a long weekend, and the car is a dream to drive.

Within 5 mins of being in this C Class I was back in the Zone. I could have driven this around all day. It was so comfortable, it’s like sitting in a sofa on wheels, with added fun.

The great thing is even in the saloon version it is a load lugger. It has a huge boot, and can cart around all the family’s needs.

For the figures 0-62 is coming in at 7.1 , Fuel consumption urban 45.6, extra urban 65.70. So you could say you can have it all great handling, great performance and good fuel consumption. Figures quoted are manufacturer figures, personal enjoyment and the emotion I write is my own.

SLK 250 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY AMG SPORT

I wrote about this same car in an earlier report. This time the car comes in the CDI guise. The car is fun to drive and apart from the growling engine, it’s is as much fun to drive as it’s brother.

Driving through the lane it is a joy to drive and again with all these CDI’s the fuel consumption is impressive as is the performance. 0-62 is 6.7 secs all the way to 151 mph.

B 180 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY SPORT 

I said at the beginning I am a Boy racer at heart, and I am sorry I am not sexist but this is a great Mum’s car, or even Dad’s car for picking the kids up from school, but that’s about it. It is boring. It might be the sports version, but there is nothing sports about it.

Having previously been driving the C class and the SLK on the roads around Milton Keynes, I drove out of the Mercedes Benz HQ car park straight on the the dual carriageway and put my foot down and nothing happened. I’m sorry but there are lots of boring looking cars, not that I’m saying the B class is, but they are not necessarily boring to drive.

Sorry but this is not a car for me. However it does do 56.5 mpg around town  and over 70 on extra urban so take your choice.

S 350 L BlueTEC

I drove this car with much reticence. The sheer size of it frightened me. It is huge . However once I got it on the open road I was in love, and couldn’t believe someone had trusted me to drive it. It was magic.

As I said it before, this car is huge and being someone use to driving an Astra estate, terrified of manoeuvring this car around.

This car feels like a living room on wheels and is so comfortable, thought to be honest, I really think and I know I’m stating the obvious this really is not an everyday family car.

However yet again cruising at 60 it still does over 40MPG, well it does according to the big dial on the dash board.

SL 350 ROADSTER

This is a cool car, it looks great, it drives great and drives with poise and greatness. It has a class of its own and I really enjoyed driving it, Somehow I feel this is not a car that appeals to the youth, but a more middle aged, discerning driver, that doesn’t need to carry loads of stuff around.

I enjoyed driving it, and with a 0-62 of  5.9 it can move, and it has a top speed of 155 mph, but it does come at a price, urban figures are 28.5 and combined 37.7 mpg and the price for this car comes in at 72,495 GBP plus the extra’s on this car pushes it to 85645 GBP.

I have had so much fun driving these cars and looking forward to next month if they will still let me drive their cars after reading these reports.

Looking forward to November's driving day, when I understand their will be the New A class.

Cattle farming in winter

I like to try to get out on farms shooting stock as much as possible, which usually is arable farming. this time of year though apart from the odd bits and pieces there is very little happening.

So I decided to take myself off to shoot some beef cattle in their winter stalls.

The Cattle are Limousin cross 

What a difference a few days make

What a difference a few days makes with the weather. For weeks now, the weather has been unbelievably mild to such an extent, that some farmers were talking about doing some spraying and last Friday Tony Leech Agri Contractor was out spraying a farmers Oil seed rape, to remove black grass, volunteer cereals and wild oats, with a Chemical called Kerb.

Today however the weather in Surrey is very different, with icy conditions and frost, which can clearly be seen here on the ground around this rape, which was taken on the southern slope of Reigate Hill, this morning

Farming in the winter

As a photographer, that when it comes to farming I shoot mainly agriculture, although you will see me this time of year venturing out occasionally to dairy farms, there is not a lot to shoot.
For Agriculture The weather, is either too wet or to cold or too windy




So when I needed to get out and get some fresh air, my contacts all told me they were out hedge cutting. As my stock library was short of hedge cutting pix off I went. These image are shot in two different locations.

They highlight some of the problems on working on public roads doing a very necessary job

Any of these images can be purchased from my stock Library To view the link to these picture click here

Meatballs

Title sounds weird, I agree.

This was inspired by The Archers, and Tom's idea of producing cooked chill food.

Anyway this is my first go and I decided to use premium sausages from a well known supermarket's meat counter.
This was my first mistake. The basic idea was great, putting grated apple, with onion and bread crumb.

The sauce was great. Roasted a pepper and a tomato, with some garlic cloves, then whizzed the whole lot together in my mini chopper.

The problem was for my taste the meat balls were too sticky as it was sausage meat over seasoned.
I will do this again but next time with minced pork. I off to buy a hand meat mincer.

Mind you I think they look ok in the pix.