Mercedes-Benz, as the earliest car brand, has created many wonderful works in the past hundred years. The protagonist today is one of them - 500E.
The Mercedes-Benz 500E can be seen as a high-performance version of the W124, which is known as the most classic E-Class. There are many legends about this car, the most interesting of which is: this is a car made by Porsche for Mercedes-Benz! There are also labels such as "Le Mans Engine" and "Classic AMG". If that's the case, let's go back to the 1970s.
The 1970s were a time of dramatic change in the automotive world, no less dramatic than today's electrification. After the 1950s, countries around the world have come out of the shadow of World War II, and there are scenes of prosperity everywhere, especially the United States.
As a result, cars were being built more and more in the North American market, and the "muscle car" that fans often talk about was a product of that era. To put it more, the standard for measuring muscle cars is not power, but size, so now "muscle cars" have become extinct.
Against this backdrop, Mercedes-Benz relied on a 6.9-liter V8 engine to harvest the North American market. But the good times did not last long, and in 1973, with the sound of artillery fire on the Golan Heights, the Fourth Middle East War broke out, and international oil prices flew into the sky along with artillery shells.
In retaliation for U.S. aid to Israel, arab countries decided to cut oil production and threatened an outright oil embargo. For a time, oil prices in Western countries soared, and even a serious oil shortage appeared. This oil crisis is like an asteroid smashing into the world's industrial system. Not only the automobile industry, but also aviation and shipping have been greatly affected.
The story goes back to Mercedes. In response to this crisis, the first thing Mercedes-Benz has to change is the entry-level sedan (the predecessor of the E-Class). In 1976, the W123 was born, and it was replaced with a more fuel-efficient 2.0, 2.5, 2.8 liter engine. In the decade from 1976 to 1986, the W123 sold a total of 2.7 million units, which is already a great achievement.
Mercedes Benz W123
The success of the W123 also makes Mercedes-Benz more confident in the next generation of W124. W124 is designed by Bruno Sacco, who is also a legendary designer with many wonderful design works, of which W124 is one of the masterpieces.
Moreover, he previously worked in the body safety department of Mercedes-Benz, so he is also very good at vehicle engineering. His request for the W124 is that after 10 years, the car still looks outdated. He did, and he did it so well, even now it looks beautiful and exquisite. The W124 uses many forward-looking design concepts, such as a more efficient aerodynamic body, and although it looks like a square box at first glance, its drag coefficient is only 0.29. To know that its design was in the early 80s, it is really remarkable.
The W124 looks so perfect: ahead of its design, gorgeous interiors, a wealth of features. It is still a benchmark for luxury mid-size cars, but there is also a crisis hidden under the beautiful surface.
W124 was in the late 80s to the early 90s, when the world changed again. The oil crisis is far away, the economy is recovering, and everyone's pursuit of large displacement and strong power is back. What's more, Mercedes's opponents have become stronger, such as: German compatriots - BMW.
With the "New Class" project, BMW rose rapidly in the 70s and gave the brand a new image with 3 series of precise control - sports. By the end of the 1980s, BMW's product line was gradually expanding, and the biggest trouble for the W124 was the M5.
After the first generation of M5 (E28) small test knife, in 1989 BMW introduced the second generation of M5 (E34), a 3.8-liter engine that can produce up to 340 horsepower. This made the W124 seem very embarrassed, every time on the highway, watching the M5 grow and go to its own without any way.
So the protagonist of this issue is finally going to appear, and Mercedes-Benz is ready to roll up his sleeves with BMW. But before that, Mercedes-Benz has to solve a tricky problem. Since the W124 was designed only for the luxury market, it did not consider high performance. And under the design inertia of the W123, the engine has at most chosen the inline 6-cylinder version, and it is very troublesome to cram the high-performance V8 engine into it.
There's another, more troubling thing — Lexus is coming. Lexus landed in the North American market with the original LS, and impressed a large number of consumers with excellent quality and craftsmanship, and it should be known that its price is only half of the S grade! So Mercedes-Benz can only start to deal with the challenge from Lexus, after all, the luxury label is the totem of Mercedes-Benz.
However, the fight with the M5 can not be put down. Mercedes looked around, also in Stuttgart, next to porsches that seemed to be able to help, and they looked like they were short of money. Yes, around 1990, Porsche's life was very poor.
Previously, when talking about the history of Cayenne, it was also introduced that after the success of the 959 supercar, Porsche's engineers came back to their senses in the thrill after a convulsion, and it turned out that they did not have any products that could make money. The market for 911 is shrinking, and other products are not strong. There are many idle production capacities, and the economic situation is deteriorating.
So the work given by Mercedes-Benz, Porsche naturally took over happily. Porsche also had an identity at that time to provide sports model solutions to other manufacturers, such as the RS2 project that helped Audi Lane in the same period. At first, though, for the Mercedes-Benz W124 project, Porsche only played a programmatic role - stuffing the wide V8 engine into the belly of the W124.
The V8 engine, code-named M119, did come from Le Mans and was later carried by the SL500, and in the face of the challenge of the M5, Mercedes naturally thought of this famous engine. Porsche first redesigned the cabin layout, making a wide body for the later W124 500E, and the interior of the cabin was also redesigned, with the seats of the main and co-pilots being more open, because the drive shaft in the middle was thicker.
At that time, in the Porsche factory area, you can see a lot of 500E parked
Mercedes-Benz felt that Porsche's solution was no problem, so the production work of the 500E was simply given to Porsche. Interestingly, the W124 with the V8 has two models, in addition to the 500E, there is also a 400E. Although both are V8 engines, the 400E does not have such an exaggerated wide body.
So there is a very interesting scene, Mercedes-Benz will send the standard W124 body to the Porsche factory, Porsche adapted to the V8 engine, and then sent back to the Mercedes-Benz factory for painting. In the case of the 400E model, Mercedes-Benz will continue to produce it, while if it is the 500E model, the parts will be packaged and sent back to the Porsche factory. When Porsche is finished, it will return to Mercedes-Benz for a final quality check.
Such a cumbersome process has also led to the extremely slow production speed of the 500E, which also means that the car is not cheap. Indeed, the 500E sold for $88,800 at the time! For comparison, the BMW M5 sells for about $64,000, and the 500E is nearly $25,000 more expensive.
But the 500E also proves to the world that you are reasonable. The 500E can unleash up to 326 horsepower, peak torque of 480 Nm, break the 100 in just 5.4 seconds, and run a quarter of a mile in 14.1 seconds. These data are enough to make the 500E ride out of the dust, leaving the M5 to eat ash in the back.
It is worth mentioning that the 500E also has a good performance in the corners. The chassis and suspension have been newly tuned, and the increased wheel spacing is not only to solve the problem of how to place the V8, but also to give the car excellent mid-bend stability, especially the grip of the front axle.
After the 500E was listed, it was indeed well received. AutoMobile once praised it as the best car in the world; Car & Driver's assessment was: There's nothing to complain about except the price.
The story follows that the 500E ushered in a mid-term redesign, and the name became E500 (the "E-Class" name was officially born when the W124 was revamped in the mid-term). Later, AMG took over the car and stuffed a more exaggerated 6.0-liter engine, and the name naturally became E60 AMG.
The 500E is a classic because it has too many interesting labels, it is a product of the oil crisis, designed by a genius Italian designer, the prelude to the fight with bmw's M department, and it is also made by Porsche (for this, I think Porsche is only the role of the OEM, compared to the high participation of the RS2, the 500E only provides the solution and is responsible for splicing the parts sent from the Mercedes)." If the 500E is something designed by Porsche, it would be too far-fetched).
After saying the story of 500E, I can't help but sigh: the same era of change, why can the classic be born at that time, and now the output is some freaks. You see, BMW XM, Mercedes-Benz EQXX are what kind of things.