It isn’t too often that you get to sit in a $100,000 car. But it is even better when you call up your local Mercedes dealer and tell them that you are the reporter that they are expecting from the New York Times who is writing an article about the car.

Yes, I am lucky that I get to do the occasional freelanced articles for the Grey Lady. It is a kick, I have to admit. Today’s piece is about new car technologies, such as one that I will tell you about that got me behind the wheel of a very nice car. Sadly, I didn’t get to even take it on the road. But still, it was fun to actually spend some time in one nice ride.

You can read my article in the New York Times here.

You have heard about Lexus’ automatic parallel parking feature. Well, I didn’t get that assignment – someone else who has better connections got to write about that. (And the short answer is if you have to parallel park your Lexus rather than leave it with a valet something is probably wrong with that picture, but you need a lot of room for the automated system to work.) But how about a car GPS system where you can email your directions directly? It is a nifty idea, and I got to see it firsthand.

There are some kinks in the system, though. It works only with Yahoo and Google mapping services, and not identically with both, depending on whether or not you are navigating to a particular address or just put in a point of interest. You can’t send other emails to the car’s GPS system – it only will accept directions from either mapping site. I guess that means it is only a matter of time before some spammer figures out how to get around this.

So what makes for such a pricey car besides the fancy GPS? How about a sunroof that is aerodynamically fitted into the car’s roof, so when it retracts, there is no wind sound? (I can’t actually say that I observed this first-hand, because as I said we never left the lot.) Or a sun shade that rolls up to cover the rear window, blocking out a lot of light to keep your car cool? Or a seat cooling system to go along with the seat warming system? Or an infrared display to show you what is ahead on the road when you are driving at night? Still, these are just options that add maybe $15,000 or so to the price of the car.

Roy, the salesman that had been delegated to show me around the car, couldn’t have been nicer, at least as car salesman go. He told me that one of the reasons why he likes selling Merc’s is that he gets to spend time making sure that the owner knows his or her way around the zillions of systems that come with the car. He will even make house calls and make sure that you can set up the integrated garage opener so you can get the car in and out of your garage. And of course there is the requisite integrated iPod and Bluetooth cellphone attachments. (Car ads in Germany right now are all about these features. Of course, there people drive Mercs instead of Buicks.)

The funny thing about Roy is that he works for the city sewer district, “doing shift work” as he put it. Selling nice cars is a big switch from his day job.

Now, you should understand that my first car was purchased when I was 30 and was a Subaru. At the time, I had a hard time getting insurance because most insurance companies want to see some kind of car ownership record and figured that you must be a bad risk if you have never owned a car until then. Didn’t matter that I had a driver’s license since 17. Now I own a Toyota, so I am definitely not Mercedes material. While I was in the car, I kept thinking about Albert Brooks talking about “Mercedes leather” in one of his movies.

Still, I have a fascination with cars just like any other red-blooded American. Indeed, when I was working at CMP’s electronics group, the first Web site we delivered was about car electronics (called AutomotiveDesignLine.com). The guy I hired to run the site is still there, Rick DeMeis, and he couldn’t be nicer for a car nut. Plus, he gets to actually drive the press loaners rather than have to beg some local dealer to just sit in the car. Thanks to Rick, I got my lede for the Times article, about Pedro’s South of the Border.

Well, it was fun while it lasted. Now back to my regular gig, reviewing the latest network security appliance that only costs about $20,000. Maybe it will have to be integrated into the next Mercedes if they have problems with their email feature. At least I have the right person to call and maybe then I will actually get to drive it.