If you are into older Mercedes – a safe bet if you’re looking at VintagEuro – perhaps you’ve stumbled onto the Mercedes-Benz Classic Center website. Mercedes is great at actively supporting and participating in the care of its older cars, a smart endeavor given its long history.
During a recent browse of the site, I came across the entry celebrating the 35th anniversary of the introduction of the W124 chassis E-class. This era of Mercedes sedans is not only near and dear to my heart, it’s also historically significant. The ’80s-generation E-class represented the classic Mercedes-Benz ethos for durability and restraint in design. But it also existed in the moment where potential buyers had rapidly evolving expectations about their luxury cars and what they meant to convey.
First, let’s look at its debut. In late November of 1984, the W124 spent a month being introduced to world press as the replacement for the W123, an eight-year-old design at that time. The look of the 124 echoed both the W126 S-class introduced in 1980, and the first “Baby Benz”, the W201 190 sedan that had just been introduced in 1982. Sharply drawn, the 124 was typical of Bruno Sacco’s design style, and it has aged well.
The new mid-size sedan was reviewed very favorably by the motoring press, welcome evidence that cars could still be a joy after the malaise of the 1970s and early ’80s, as engineers adapted to emissions and safety regulations. But it was perhaps not as well received as you’d think by Mercedes enthusiasts.
The previous 123 chassis had been a big success, and was perceived as having much more visual character. The first rumblings of the “same sausage, different lengths” critique of the Mercedes sedan lineup – a complaint that has become familiar for every modern German luxury car line – likely started here.
But the W124 was a huge step forward in chassis design and innovation. This was among the first cars built with offset crash dynamics in mind, using computer-aided design for the structure, and employing every bit of knowledge Mercedes-Benz had learned about passive safety at the time. This car was also among the first to employ a sophisticated multi-link rear suspension, first seen in the smaller 190E, that maintained the tire’s contact with the road in a variety of situations that simpler designs could not match.
What excited reviewers at the time was that, after a long decade watching cars get strangled by emissions regulations and crash standards, the 300E managed to not only exceed those standards, but also prove you could wrap all that in a car that was a joy to drive. Along with the usual over-the-top engineering execution Mercedes-Benz was known for, it was a truly advanced car that employed a lot of innovative details still used by manufacturers today.
The model was produced for the US market from 1986 to 1995 in sedan, coupe, cabriolet, and wagon forms, and it was a reliable seller. In the US, the initial choice was simply the sedan version with the 3.0L inline six, available with either a manual and automatic transmission. Eventually the coupe and wagon versions were introduced, and then the four-seat cabriolet. Additional engine options in the US included a pair of diesels, as well as lower-horsepower 2.6L and 2.8L gas inline sixes.
The V8 versions didn’t arrive until 1992, starting with the 400E – available only in sedan form – and of course, the collaboration with Porsche that resulted in the iconic flared-fender 500E. Packing those engines in the 124 was no small feat, and complications meant that the V8 cars were only available in left-hand drive. That didn’t keep Mercedes from offering the 500E in the UK and Japan, albeit still driving from the left.
The various 124s sold well for Mercedes, pretty much up to its last year in 1995. But it’s worth noting how dramatically the world of luxury cars shifted in that time, and how Mercedes reacted to that. Personally I saw that shift reflected in the two W124 models I owned, which, as coupes were actually designated C124s. The first was a 1989 300CE, the second year of production for the two-door and the other was a 1994 E320 coupe, renamed and subtly but profoundly different. I owned both at the same time and know firsthand how surprisingly different they were in feel.
The 1989 300CE was built and equipped in the classic Mercedes fashion – austere and refined, with a sense of indestructibility. The chassis was stout and stiff; equipped with the 3.0L SOHC inline six with 177 hp – as smooth as a motor can be – it offered no specific tone to speak of. The transmission, as with most gas-engined Mercedes automatics at the time, normally started off in second gear for added smoothness. To override that stately but sluggish start, you either mashed the throttle or put the gated shifter into “2,” which in Stuttgart logic actually meant first gear.
The interior at that point was instantly familiar to anyone who had been in any Mercedes sedan since the 1950’s. Leather was standard on the coupe, looking not much different than the MB-Tex vinyl of lower-spec sedans with the well-known perforated look. A minimalist dash offered up just the facts in clear, logical displays.
The price at the time? Starting at $53,880 (which works out to $111,000 in 2020 dollars) the coupe version was hardly a bargain. Considering a 2020 E450 coupe starts at $64,350, you get a sense of how Mercedes-Benz was operating in its own space at the time, able to charge whatever it deemed appropriate.
In sharp contrast is the 1994 E320 Coupe I also owned at the time. Same chassis and basic configuration, but a change in how Mercedes named their models meant the car was now officially an E-class. The base price for an E320 coupe in 1994 was $61,000 and change – an increase over 1989 to be sure, but offering more value relative to today’s money at $105,533. That’s S-class money now, and inching up on twice the price of the current E-class coupe.
The differences between these two cars seemed minor on the surface. Updates for 1994 included a more aerodynamic headlight and hood design with a smaller grille, but other changes were much more substantial. First, the engine of the newer car was a different animal despite the same basic block. Mercedes had switched from the 177-hp SOHC two-valve motor to a DOHC four-valve 3.2-liter with 217 hp.
The same basic four-speed automatic was still in use, but in a telling “shift” in philosophy the transmission was programmed to start in first at all times. Between the gear selection and the increased power, the car felt dramatically different around town – much more lively and athletic, coupled with a nicely tuned and more vocal engine note that sounded a lot more aggressive and even… fun?… as you got to redline. It felt and sounded sporty in a way the ’89 300CE couldn’t match, and more importantly, was not trying to. A telling difference for what is essentially the same car.
The interior continued that quest for more flash. The leather seating no longer had the familiar ribbed-for-pleasure style we’d seen for decades, but a more loosely applied treatment with smaller pinholes on flatter seating surfaces. On the door panels you no longer had perforated vinyl, but leather insets with a “gathered” look that caught your eye. With heated seats, a standard multi-speaker stereo including a subwoofer in the driver door, the 124 shape remained, but Mercedes intent changed.
One of those small but telling changes was that the outside rear view mirror on the ’89 coupe was only electric on the passenger side, retaining a manual adjustment for the driver mirror. Mercedes insisted forever that there was no point in the unnecessary complication of making the driver mirror electric. By 1994, they had adapted to the fact that customers just saw that as cheap, and both mirrors were controlled by the console switch.
The generation that followed the 124 was among the first to show – unfortunately, quite clearly – the attempt by Mercedes-Benz to cut costs and become more efficient at building cars at a more reasonable price. It was a complete change in the company’s approach to manufacturing, and it was a difficult transformation, at best. New lessons had to be learned, in addition to saving money in order to compete.
It was also clear that by this time the arrival of Lexus had shaken up the luxury market and what was expected of those cars. The Japanese newcomers were well-built and reliable. But it was Toyota’s experience with finding the most efficient way to build a car in terms of time and cost (and with a minimum of corrections needed after assembly) that allowed them to severely undercut Mercedes on price.
Couple that build efficiency with a change in customer expectations and the differences between early and late models makes more sense. With the dramatic difference in features available in even the basic economy cars, the simple addition of cruise control and electric windows in an austere environment simply weren’t going to cut it anymore. The price premium for the Mercedes became harder to justify, as that $61,000 MSRP for the E320 coupe represented a substantial $16,000 premium over the V8-equipped 1994 Lexus SC400 Coupe.
While Daimler-Benz as a company was initially skeptical that those luxury upstarts were an actual threat to their dominance, their eventual adaptation to different manufacturing methods was immediately (read: disappointingly) apparent in the product. That fact leaves many believing that the W124, along with the other Mercedes-Benz models from that time, represent the last old-world, cost-no-object examples of mass-market cars we’ll probably ever see.
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