Recently I had a chance to catch up with a friend, who since I had last seen him had purchased a classic Mercedes-Benz. After months of getting it polished up and running right, his 250 was proudly on display at an event that he drove hours to get to. I got to go for a ride in it, and immediately the smells, sounds, and experience of a classic Mercedes-Benz all flooded back; there really is something special about these cars.
The 250 was one of the six-cylinder models on offer as part of the 1.9 million produced in the W114/W115 series. Designed by the legendary Paul Bracq, the W114/W115 is a handsome design that channels all the right classic Mercedes-Benz qualities. It really does look like a scaled-down 600. Though the overall production number is really high, numbers in the six-cylinder configuration are much lower; today’s car should be a W114.611, which was produced between 1973–1976 and was powered by a 2.8-liter M130. About 11,500 were made in this run, and this model year was the end of the run for the W114 – as ’77 saw the W123 introduced. Let’s take a look: