Sunday Car Porn: Gestation of the Mercedes 'Baby Benz' W201 190E in pics.

Mercedes Benz took the end of the 1960s up till 1982 to finally come up with a Baby Benz, the Mercedes Benz 190E (W201 series). Being a very traditional brand who only built high end cars, it took its sweet time in coming up with an 'entry level' car. And that wasn't what really happened too. 

Since Mercedes Benz never built a small car in a long, long while, the 190E was over-engineered and was still priced at a premium compared to a similar sized Ford Escort or even a slightly larger Mazda 626 of its day. It had the same 'thunk' when you closed the doors. It brought along the first production multi-link suspension in a road going car as well as many features that you now see in cars today. It was so good that it stayed in production till 1993 with over 1.8million units built.



Take a look at the photos below of drawings and of prototypes to see how Mercedes Benz started out, especially the middle part where they cut a W114/115 and made it shorter and narrower. Quite unique.

Compare this with the full sized w114/5 below

I think it was wise for Mercedes Benz to actually wait till the 1980s before the 'Baby Benz' came out. Don't you guys agree too?


Photo Source:Mercedes Benz