For years, Mercedes-Benz has fed its U.S. customers a diet of ever-more-powerful engines in its E-class sedan. It's been decades since the forebearer to today's E-class had a four-cylinder engine behind its signature radiator grille - at least in America. Our lowliest E-class Benz, which isn't so lowly at all, has instead come with a six, with a V-8 as the move-up engine, and, for a time, a supercharged V-8 in the AMG version, which has since switched to a normally aspirated big-block (6.2 liter!) V-8.

In Europe, Mercedes offers those same engines, but they're the tippy top of a much larger pyramid. Four-cylinder gasoline engines and diesels, considered insufficiently muscular to power a compact C-class over here, comprise the bulk of E-class sales over there. For 2010, the redesigned E-class has a new family of four-cylinder gasoline and diesel engines at the base of its powerplant pyramid.