Hey! what happened to your "superior class" signature?? I thought that was awsome
You have to remember that Germany is in a recession, so mercedes is probably hiring as many people as they can to keep the unemployed rate as low as possible (its basically a socialist country, mercedes may have been forced). Anyway to make up for higher labor costs they might have to boot up the cost of the actual product because so many people (than necessary) are being used to build it. Thats just a theory of mine though, so take it for what its worth.
That is one expensive 230! Whoa. I think a fully loaded 330i is about 44k at most, but thats a 330, which is way more car than a C230.