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The W123 History Course
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The Predecessor W114 and W115 (1968-1976)
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This Mercedes family chassis was commonly known as the /8 (stroke-eight’s) or the “New generation” Mercedes. The W123 inherited much of the design of the W114/115 family and there are probably no other two middle-class models from Daimler-Benz that bare as much similarity to each other than the W114/115 and the W123.
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The W123 history (1976-1986)
...comming soon, I hope.
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Here you can read all about the production history of the W123. Find out about dates of interest, when and what modifications where made to the chassis during the production time, what ideas and design where integrated form the predecessors and what new technology was introduced.
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The Successor W124 (1985-1995)
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In the end the successful W123 was bound to step aside for a new generation of middle-class Mercedes. It was a farewell to the classical Mercedes look, a farewell to chrome and a time to mould the MB into the new common wind-tunnel plastic look of the last decade of the century. Besides the looks, it was a completely successful model and a worthy successor of the W123, mainly in the area of safety and general technology.
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Meanwhile: The S-class W116 (1972-1980)
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The W116 was the S-Class Mercedes during the first four years of the production of the W123. In many ways the W116 is an predecessor of the W123, and much of the design was integrated directly to the W123. The W116 can easily be mistaken for a W123 by someone not knowing better. The general look of the model was more like the W123 than the predecessor W108, or the middle-class W114/115. The flat horizontal look of the W116 (especially the front end) was much more like the W123 than the curved look of the older W108/114/115 family. This can easily be explained by the overlapping of the production and design time.
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Meanwhile: The S-class W126 (1979-1991)
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About midway into the production-time of the W123 a new S-Class was introduced as the successor of the W116. Besides the fact that the plastic was silently moving up the profile of the car, the W126 has this classical Mercedes look. It was a beautiful design and a successful model from the start but at the same time a bit of a bulk.
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Meanwhile: The new compact-class W201 (1982-1993)
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The Mercedes 190 was a completely new chassis class. It was a more compact sedan and smaller than the middle-class models like the W123. Until that time MB had only middle-class-size chassis like the W114/115 and the W123 plus bigger S-Class chassis like the W116 and W126. MB decided that there would be a market for a smaller chassis and constructed the 190/W201. Since there is not much general interest in this model today, there is no site to link to for further information. However, Juergen at the MB Enthusiast's Pages gives us some insight to this model at the link above.
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History Course
