Mercedes-Benz E-Class

Mercedes-Benz’s mid-size executive saloon, sold under a bewildering set of names (200, 230E, 300D, E-Class) before the company standardised the “E” letter across its whole range in 1993.^[1] Markey treats the run as starting with the W124 of 1984, which is the generation Wikipedia and most enthusiasts retroactively call the first E-Class even though the badge itself didn’t exist until nine years into its production run. Two generations are catalogued here: the W124, still cited as one of the most over-engineered cars Mercedes ever built, and the current W214, the company’s first E-Class sold exclusively as a hybrid of one kind or another.