Good, clean and fresh, tra-la-la

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And while it may look cool to drive to the pub or the office with a kayak tied to the roof of your vehicle, or with a bicycle strapped to the boot of the car, or in a bakkie brimming with bull bars, it's certainly not good for your wallet or the environment.

Nor is neglecting to check your tyre pressures regularly, pushing the rev counter into the red and overloading your vehicle (did anybody mention the word taxi?).

Besides being ostentatiously over the top it really is also quite silly and uncaring to pop down to the supermarket around the corner for a few salad ingredients in a gas-guzzling SUV, MPV or 4x4.

Because all of these things waste fuel and increase the emission of foul fumes.

And vehicle owners might as well get used to the fact that sooner rather than later, high-emission vehicles are going to be punished with higher taxes, duties and other fees right here on our home turf.

Already fuel prices are sky-high and with the economy as tough as it is, things are only going to get worse.

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So the timing could not have been better for Mercedes-Benz to unwrap the latest addition to its popular C-Class range, the frugal C180 KOMPRESSOR BlueEFFICIENCY which, the maker says, uses up to 12% less fuel than the previous model.

And in addition to using only 6.7 litres per 100km/h, its carbon dioxide emission is also down to as little as 159 grams per kilometres.

All of which are happy tidings for the Save our Planet People, the Anti Earth-Warmers, the Conscientious Commuters and everybody else who wants the world to achieve independence from fossil energy sources.

The cynics amongst us will probably smirk and question whether a 10% fuel saving on any vehicle is going to safeguard the earth's future, particularly as this saving still very much depends on how we drive, when we drive and where we drive.

But hey, you've got the give the German white-coats a bundle of Brownie points for what they've achieved with this new model.

To start off with they hauled out the 1.8-litre engine which did duty in the previous C180 KOMPRESSOR models and replaced it with a 1.6-litre motor without losing any of the bigger engine's 115kW output and 230Nm of torque.

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Then out came the scalpel and they trimmed the car's weight by 32 kilograms. To achieve this they fitted a new windscreen made of laminated glass, lightened the noise-insulating lining of the firewall and replaced the alloys with forged lightweight wheels.

Aerodynamic fine-tuning was next on the agenda. Much too detailed to talk about here, it involved things such as cutting ventilation slits into the tail lights to reduce drag by enough to do away with spoiler lips.

Hoo boy, and we haven't even got to energy management, tyres with a low rolling resistance, a power steering system which is controlled on a needs-driven (and therefore energy-saving basis) and a six-speed manual transmission with overdrive characteristics.

But probably key to all this good and clean and fresh tra-la-la business is the car's new instrument cluster which now takes on the role of petrol policeman by constantly showing the current fuel consumption in litres per 100 kilo and advising (instructing!) the driver which gear to be in for optimum fuel savings.

And it's a wide awake system, which responds immediately when the driver changes to a higher gear or takes his foot off the accelerator to use the deceleration fuel cut-off function.

The Mercedes marketing chaps say an economical and energy-conscious style of driving will save up to 15% without any loss of driving enjoyment in this new model.

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Maybe so, although even in an ‘ordinary' car, common sense driving will save fuel and cut emissions.

But the driving style needed to make the BlueEFFICIENCY function at its best is not likely to make many friends, nor is it a particularly exciting or enjoyable way of getting from point A to point B.

The combination of low speeds and high gears will not appeal to everybody and it could lead to a lot of hooted insults and one-finger salutes in rush-hour traffic.

And, quite honestly, there is not much fun in piddling along at 70 kays an hour just to save point zero-zero-two litres of fuel.

I drove the car briefly when it was introduced to the motoring media and it was not an experience which left me breathless.

Sure, it's a Mercedes and it looks and drives like a Mercedes, but it's that darn accusing finger of the fuel usage gauge I wasn't all that comfortable with.

I love motor cars and love driving, but I don't take too kindly to be told by a chunk of fancy machinery, that costs a lot of money, which gear I should be driving in.

Which is why anybody with high octane in his veins will probably not buy a blueEFFICIENCY KOMPRESSOR.

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But make no mistake: this C180 has all the attributes of the previous model. It handles well, it's comfortable, safe, well-equipped and it's well glued and screwed together - in short, all one would expect from a Mercedes-Benz.

If you drive it as sensibly as it wants to be driven it will save you money and it will no doubt make you feel like a pillar of society and a caring citizen.

No doubt this version of the C180 KOMPRESSOR will appeal to current Merc owners as well as to trendy urbanites who love to be seen to be doing the right thing but who are actually not quite committed enough to the health of our planet to drive a Toyota Prius.

If you regularly drive on roads where you can use high gears without causing a traffic tail-back then this Merc is a sensible buy - as long as you don't tell the old bore at the golf club anything about it, because he will immediately rush out to buy one, just so that he can drone his fellow club members to sleep with long-winded tales of the miniscule fuel saving he managed between his home and the club, while driving along at 27 kilometres an hour in sixth gear…..

Footnote: The new C180 KOMPRESSOR BlueEFFICIENCY is available in two options: a sedan at R314,000 or an Estate at R323,000 and included in the price a maintenance contract and a two-year unlimited full vehicle warranty.