The Legendary W124 Mercedes E Class - My First Drive

[Music] hello everyone I'm generally not much of a Mercedes fan but recently I have been introduced to a few examples of the marque that are allowing me to perhaps warm to the brand a little bit more I started off with the mighty 600 SEL and then followed that up a couple of weeks ago with the rather forgotten and quite awesome c43 and when I did the 600 SEL video I had an awful lot of people commenting and telling me that I really should get my hands on a w124 also known as the first II class now as a small youtuber I very rarely have the ability to simply summon up particular cars I love people asking me for things and giving me their requests and if there's anything even think of you'd like me to review please do get into the comments section and tell me but I can make absolutely no promises that I'll be able to do it however I did realize not too long ago that I do actually know somebody with a w124 and so that's what we're in today my buddy Darren's 1995 e320 Kupe and one of the defining features of this car is the amazing pillarless side windows which i have down because the weather is nice we've got the sunroof open and damn it I'm gonna enjoy it if there's a bit of extra wind noise I apologize but deal with it now many of you seem to regard this car as pretty important in Mercedes history and I really know very little about them in fact what I do know who has mostly been gleaned for a walk-around of this car with my buddy Darren this morning now he's owned this particular example for 14 years and it's just filled with cool little details this cars got a real story now it is a 3.2 liter straight-6 with a 4-speed automatic gearbox I was kind of hoping it had the manual but I'm told that the 4-speed apparently is the better of the two autos the other choice being a 5-speed which apparently isn't quite as bulletproof as this one now this car isn't completely standard it's got a a character design front bumper rear bumper and little wing it's a pretty subtle body kit by modern standards and these were actually sold through Mercedes of hips which so they were a semi-official body kit this car she was supplied from new in London and being in 1995 it's pretty much the last of line now the e320 in terms of the coupe a is the biggest most powerful into you could get before you went on to the AMG models which included the e36 now those are quite rare beasties but as it happens the w124 itself is becoming a lesser spotted Merc now because now we're all getting quite a bit older like I said this car has last line being in 95 they actually started production in about 85 so some of these that are kicking around now were 35 years old that's quite old this one's actually looking not too shabby considering it has certainly been used it's got a hundred and thirty three thousand miles on the clock and I know Darren loves it to bits but he certainly doesn't treat it as a garage Queen oh no he's been all over Europe with this car in where I'm sat there are lots of nice little details that set it out or something a little bit different and from just a different time I mean my favorite thing is the fact you have two differently sized wing mirrors this one is wider but shorter and this one over here is a narrower but tall nobody apparently is actually sure of why that is the possible theory being that you need more width on this because you've got a bit of a blind spot over here and on this side you maybe need the ability to see the curb a little bit easier but genuinely I don't think anyone knows if you have a rough idea as to why that might be please do get into that comment section and give us your ideas this car being a run-out model is apparently quite well specified the original eClass --is of the mid-80s essentially you bought car you chose your engine and then anything else you wanted was an optional extra and that includes the radio if you did not specify a radio Mercedes very kindly gave you a little blanking plate presumably to remind you of how much of a peasant you were and not having expect a radio speaking of radios this car does bear the hallmarks of a car that was once owned by a much fresher faced younger more adventurous Darrin in the form of the nice little fold the outer very Halfords a stereo here and the amazing triple sub setup in the back which had me falling about laughing when I saw it because in terms of this granddad's Mercedes it is rather incongruous this car has been upgraded to the Sport Line specification which includes things like a thicker anti-roll bar a slightly lowered ride height and a faster steering box notice a box or not rack there because this car still has the old-fashioned relating ball steering rather than the more modern or more common I should say rack and pinion performance figures from this car are not particularly impressive you've got a just over 220 horsepower and same again for talk from that 3.2 liter engine this car has an aftermarket powerful exhaust fitted to it but it sounds meaty but it's not gonna set the world on fire now it's not the sort of car that wants to be thrown around a bend whatsoever Oh No I've driven down this road in many different cars at many different speeds and I think I could say with some confidence that this is the slowest er that I have ever been down this road and that doesn't bother me at all what this is currently really reminding me of is the Jaguar XJ that I drove not too long ago it's got that real sort of regal feeling about it it also actually seems to corner impressively flat it probably not looking flat at all from the outside I haven't done the drive wires yet but I'll put some of those in for you to see and you can judge and tell me whether you think it's cornering flatly or not the throttle pedal is pretty unresponsive I mean I'm it's making a little bit of noise but it doesn't really want to do much I mean here's my test of how responsive a car is okay I have this little test what I do I stab the throttle pedal all the way to the floor and then back up and see what happens in more sporty ER cars even in that short time you do it you'll you'll get that will happen but I have a suspicion I know what's gonna happen in this car okay so you ready I'm gonna I'm just gonna stab the carpet okay ready there we go that that was it now the car did actually have a think about changing down but we're following a Citroen c3 and even though I put my foot flat to the floor that makes a pleasing noise but we really weren't catching up on it any kind of rate at all but I don't care it's really not that kind of car what is impressive is despite the fact that if you think about it this cars got a huge hole cut out of the side a big hole cut out of the roof I can't hear any creaks or rattles or anything in here it's actually really properly put together and it does certainly look like a solid old lump of German engineering helped him part by the genuine AMG wheels that the car is wearing not the standard fitment of course and this color is actually quite a an interesting shade the snappily named emerald green black metallic now the good news about this a lovely slice of German luxury is the fact that you can pick up one for a reasonable sum bearing in mind the fact that classic car prices in general are still a little bit silly the sheer quantity of these things ever produced two and a half million and the massive variety of diesels petrels you've got five different body styles you have a coupe a Cabriolet you got saloon you've got the bollocks it is staked and the Pullman the limousine means that there's loads of them to choose from however I would love to be able to tell you that you can also run one of these on a very sensible budget and then it wouldn't cost anywhere near as much to maintain as the equivalent Jaguar however I would be lying now to quote Darren's own words everything in these cars which is known for braking has broken in this car now that may well be down to the fact that before Darren took a hold of it it was owned by several people that lived in cities and city miles are hard miles it was then taken over by a 19 year old Darren and 19 year old miles are difficult miles as well parts for the cars are becoming increasingly expensive and in certain cases difficult to get particularly relating to interior trim pieces and the like all the big ticket items like body panels engine parts all that kind of stuff can still be had relatively easily but prices are going up for them quite dramatically so if you're looking at one of these that's a project do your research before and don't assume that you can just get everything you need to finish it off easily however as an experience this has been quite enjoyable I would say that this is very much a budget version of the 600 SEL or the s-class as it later in fact some of the switchgear is common between the two and if you want the sort of car that you can drive down your favorite country road and about half the speed that you normally do and still enjoy the experience on a day like today it's actually a damn good car would have rode one no I wouldn't I don't love it enough but I can see why Darren does and why it stayed around for quite as long as it has because it is ultimately what a Mercedes in my mind really should be and even 25 years on this still feels like a luxury car so there we go so a little look at the legendary w124 and just a couple of its quirks and features thanks for watching everyone I'll see you on the next one bye bye [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: JayEmm on Cars

Views: 86,113

Rating: 4.8558822 out of 5

Keywords: Diary, VLOG, Car, Sound, Test, video, Review, Comparison, JayEmm on Cars, Mercedes, Mercedes-Benz, Mercedes-Benz W124, W124, E320, E Class, E Klasse, C320, E320C, AMG, E36, First E Class

Id: Z6G6ziy-v6M

Length: 12min 41sec (761 seconds)

Published: Thu May 16 2019