The Sunday News
Lovert Mafukure
The W124 is a timeless classic and an engineering masterpiece. It was the first one to officially carry the E-class badge and was engineered at a time when Mercedes Benz was prioritising engineering over financial targets.
Autozine reckons it is the best-engineered car of all time because it was durable and reliable than most cars of its era. Most critics however, argue that as much as it was durable it was not reliable but it’s debatable since by design, Mercedes Benz isn’t really a DIY car like our faithful Toyotas.
If money was nothing and passion was everything, we’d have more of these cars driving on our roads. Here’s a car that’s arguably the last one of the strongest Mercs made to last over a complete mile.
That is why you still find them today driving like they were made yesterday. Nowadays they make cars for the spares market; it’s all about the money and that is why the W124 was and still is the best.
The variations available for this model were the sedan, the station wagon, the 2 door cabriolet and the mighty 500E. You will notice that the E was at the end of the 500E.
This was later changed to have the letter before the digits with the last face lifted models that came out around 1994-1995 these were the models to officially carry the E-class badge which has been kept to date.
Cars naturally suffer from aerodynamic drag like any other object that has to go against natural forces like air and water.
The W124 was and still is a large car but its aerodynamic design was well thought out and it has a very low drag coefficient for a large car.
Coefficient of drag is used to quantify the resistance an object faces in movement, so that means as cars experience drag, the rate at which they experience that drag depends on their aerodynamic nature . . . and this car was fluid on the road. The styling of the W124 was modern and veered off from its predecessors design, enlarging the lights and the grill which as per custom was attached to the long bonnet.
The doors were quite large for a mid-size sedan, making it a long car with that signature trapezoidal boot that led to it acquiring the famous V-Boot name. It was larger than its predecessor was but it was lighter. To say it was elegant is an understatement. In the Nollywood movies of the early 2000s, it was the symbol of wealth.
Whoever thought they had made it in life would be seen driving to the village in a W124 Mercedes Benz.
This first E class was also the first Mercedes Benz to roll off the assembly line with the 4MATIC system. 4MATIC is Mercedes Benz’s clever All-Wheel Drive system.
While most car manufacturers pride themselves with simple four-wheel drive system where power is distributed to all 4 wheels equally, Mercedes Benz went further to prove why the name Mercedes Benz will always be a name that exudes power and eloquence in all automotive language by coming up with a system that distributes power to all wheels accordingly.
That means, if one wheel begins to slip, power goes to other three wheels to balance up the equation and grip whatever surface you find yourself on. The 4MATIC has been a joy even to this day. On this model however, it was reserved for the Station wagon touring version.
The flagship of this 124 model was the monstrous 500E, the beast. Jointly developed by Mercedes Benz and Porsche, it was supposed to give the BMW M5 a good run for its money. It would have, but BMW was already a mile ahead with the 5 series M5 having been launched in the late eighties.
The 500E was heavy weighing in just a little shy of two tonnes. The weight wasn’t a problem for the 300hp engine. It was a 32 valve V8 5litre engine driven by a 4 speed automatic gearbox and still did 0-100 in around 6seconds. It was impressive for its time. I have not heard if ever there was a manual option for this one.
Other variants were available were from a 2litre up to the 5 litre V8. Entry-level models were manual transmissions with carburetted engines and some came electronic fuel injection.
Diesel models were also available, the 200D, 250D and the 300D turbocharged. The 300D turbo only came with an automatic transmission and no manual option. They were mostly found in the station wagon versions with the 4MATIC all wheel drive system.
Whether it is the last of the great Mercedes Benzs or not is still debatable but this was the last Benz made when Mercedes Benz was still prioritising engineering over financial targets but then again money answers all things.
Until next time, keep the classic wheels spinning.
Give us feedback if you have similar classics in your garage. @lovert116 Automart Used Spares Centre — Quality Used Japanese Spares +263 772 33 99 38 — [email protected]/Facebook: @automartusc
