What kind of car should you buy if you’re looking for a reliable, stylish daily driver with German build quality and driving dynamics, but don’t have a huge amount of money to spend? The W124 platform E-class suggests itself as an obvious answer. These are precisely the sort of car for which Mercedes-Benz earned its reputation as a manufacturer of the best cars in the world. Over engineered, reliable, safe and built like tanks, they can be regularly picked up still going strong with hundreds of thousands of miles on the odometer. Which means that if you can score a clean, low mileage example, you can be sure that it has many years of faithful service left ahead of it, if properly maintained. This remarkably clean, well-specified E320 looks to be just such a car.
Year: 2017
There isn’t very much time remaining on this ad, but since it isn’t an auction and doesn’t appear to be going anywhere too quickly that…
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The W114 and W115Â is looked at as the generation that came before the legendary W123 came along and cemented itself as one of the best…
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Time does funny things to how you view cars. In 2001, I couldn’t have been less excited to see an A4 1.8T, especially in Tiptronic form. It was the car that finally made Audi solvent, granted – and as an Audi enthusiast, that should have made me happy. But it also brought a group of Johnny-come-latelys to the brand, steering BMW 3-Series buyers away from their tried and trusted steeds. I don’t know why this should have bothered me, but it did.
As a result, I sort of swore off the A4 for a long time. It was too heavy, too underpowered, too round. The 1.8T, even rated at an upgraded 170 horsepower later in the run, felt pretty underwhelming to drive even compared to the glacier-slow inline-5s I grew up with. The seats and interior felt cheap even though they looked more modern than the E36 and certainly more so than the B4 and B3 generation. In short, the A4 felt like a gimmick, and while the market bought it, I didn’t.
Fast forward now 21 years since the launch of the B5, and I have a much greater appreciation for the model. It’s on the verge of being vintage in some states (or already may be, depending on your local laws) which is about as boggling to the mind as considering a billionaire a “populist”. The popularity of the A4 led it to be the first “disposable” Audi, so finding a clean and lower mile A4 has become difficult. But they’re out there if you look, and even the ‘lowly’ 1.8T model has its appeal:
CLICK FOR DETAILS: 2001 Audi A4 1.8T quattro Avant on eBay
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Last week I wondered what kind of W126 S-class you could buy if you had an unlimited budget and wanted one in practically brand new condition. That search yielded a gorgeous, pearl black on black, ultra-low mileage ’89 560SEL, which ultimately sold for a very respectable $21k. I thought I’d play the same game this week, only this time I went on the hunt for a coupe. The SEC (or “C126”), designed by legendary Bruno Sacco, was based on a slightly shortened version of the sedan chassis. While the car retains many of the same graceful and elegant lines of its four door sibling, the coupe sports a sexy, pillarless profile that changes the character of the car. If the 80s stock broker was chauffeured to Wall Street in the SEL during the week, he drove the SEC to wild parties in the Hamptons on the weekends.