Mercedes-Benz E-Class W212 Receives Top Safety Pick+ From IIHS

Today it's time for yet another Mercedes-Benz model to be enter the elite Top Safety Pick + club, and this time it is the redesigned E-Class W212, which also passed the small front overlap crash test.

In case it is not common knowledge by now, the dreaded small overlap crash test requires that only 25 percent of the tested vehicle must hit a five-foot-tall rigid barrier at 40 mph (64 km/h), therefore simulating to some degree what happens to the car when it hits either another vehicle, a tree or a utility pole with just one of its two front corners.

As you can imagine, the resulting crash test looks pretty brutal as far as the dissipation of kinetic energy goes, but you should remember that cars which didn't get good marks from IIHS in this test look even more mangled and are much more unsafe for the driver or front occupant.

The Mercedes-Benz E-Class W212 facelift actually held up very well, as you can see in the following crash test video, with the passenger cell remaining almost intact and the impact forces being dissipated enough so that the driver dummy escaped with no injuries.

Apart from the aforementioned test, the E-Class W212 facelift also scored good marks in the moderate overlap front, side, roof strength and seat/head restraint evaluations, thus making IIHS give the car the reputable Top Safety Pick+ award.