I owned this 1986 Mercedes 300E while in Denver in 2002-2003. It was pretty reliable the time I had it there. It took me all around the area from local camping trips, mount Rushmore, LA, Grand Canyon, off road tracks etc. The 3.0 M103 liter engine is pretty willing and these cars will do over 200km/h. I sold the car in early 2003 to a coworker. He wanted a runabout for the trip to and from work. He donated it to charity a couple of years later. In around 2008, when I was living in Michigan, I ran the carfax and the car was still extant.
The 1986 Mercedes 300E won a lot of awards in its day. It certainly was a revolutionary car and the first mid-size car to get good performance after the emissions era. The W124 series was the second model after the W201 to use the Mercedes 5 link rear suspension that they used for many years.
As can be seen from the pictures, the car was in Diamond Blue, with a dark blue MB-Tex interior. I always liked Diamond blue. This car was in above average condition. It was from Florida originally. With studded snow tyres, it went really well in the Denver snow. The main problem was that the heater didn’t work when it got really really cold.
The W124 is nice to drive, but it just doesn’t have the character of the earlier chrome bumper cars, or even the W126. Having said that, if you need a good reliable car for not a lot of money, a W124 is a decent alternative. I also driven the W124 230E and the 300 is they way to go – they don’t use much more fuel (the 230 has to work hard to move the fairly heavy car around) and it is a much nicer driving experience.
