Mercedes-Benz E-Class chauffeur hire

The E-Class has a bench rather than two separate seats, and the difference shows the moment a third person gets in. Two adults sit well: there is room to cross your legs, the transmission tunnel is low enough not to be a nuisance, and the armrest folds down between you. Three adults fit for twenty minutes across town, and honestly not much longer than that.

Rear legroom is generous rather than remarkable. Anyone over six foot wants the front seat wound forward a notch, and a chauffeur does that before you arrive rather than after you have folded yourself in. The rear glass is deep, which counts for more than it sounds on a long motorway leg where there is nothing to look at but the middle distance.

Climate is controlled separately in the back, so the temperature you set is the one you keep for the whole run. There is a charging point either side and a flat armrest wide enough for a laptop, though in practice most people put a coffee on it and leave the laptop in the bag until they land somewhere with a desk.

For airport work the E-Class is the default, and the reason is unglamorous: it fits everywhere. It clears the height barrier in every short-stay multi-storey we use, so your chauffeur can park properly, walk into the building and stand at the arrivals door with your name, rather than ring you from a holding area a mile up the road.

The car is despatched against the flight, not against the ticket. Landing times are watched from the moment the aircraft is airborne, so a two-hour delay moves the whole booking rather than costing you a car. What waiting is included, and what happens beyond it, is set out in the written quotation before you travel rather than argued about at the kerb.

Going the other way it is the same car in reverse: two cases in the boot, a bag on the seat beside you, and a drop at the door nearest the airline desk you are actually checking in at. That last detail sounds small until you have walked the length of Heathrow Terminal 5 with a suit carrier.

The E-Class rewards a light right foot. There is more than enough torque to leave a junction without being provoked, and a chauffeur uses about a third of it. Most of the skill is in reading far enough up the road that the brake pedal gets used once, smoothly, instead of three times in quick succession.

Gear changes disappear if the car is driven gently and announce themselves if it is not. The suspension behaves the same way: meet a speed hump at walking pace and the car breathes over it; meet it at twenty and everyone in the back knows about it. A passenger reading email notices both without ever looking up.

The other half of driving it well is where it stops. A chauffeur will go round the block so the rear door opens onto the pavement rather than into a live lane, even when the address is in sight on the other side. It costs ninety seconds, and it is the difference between being met and being dropped off.