What Do You Guy Think About MB 500E's

I think they are freaking awesome. I always search for the right one on eBay and CL. I got close to pulling the trigger once, but lack of space made me pull back.

 

Drove one when they were new, neat cars, but what MB should have made as the standard E class.

 

I love mine; 244K on the clock, fully serviced, needs paint and a few glitches like a window reg and a radio issue.. If high octane wasnt $5.25 a gallon I would keep it. It does get 20MPG by the hiway... Sell mine as is/ where is for $4650. I break even. $1300 to ship to mainland.

 

OEM Mercedes nav from the above link is cool. Never knew they offered that in 92. Id say this has to be in my top ten; placed just below an audi rs2 avant.

Ive had 1 car with over 215k miles on it when i sold it. It had leather (not leatherette) that was taken car of and never had an issue with ripping or unusual wear. As far as the plastic bits- the car isnt old enough for plastic exterior bits to come undone. I kow alot of factors go into this but id have to say its more time than mileage. Interior parts- if it hasnt broken yet, i wouldnt expect it to with proper care.

That being said 500e's are still the best thing thats ever come out of a MB/Porsche Relationship. When owners and enthusiasts use terms like "bank vault quality" or "bulletproof" on an early 90's high performance car it should count for something

 

Not this one at least.. Been a solid car. I would say if you didnt know it had so many miles; it drives tight and solid and doesnt feel worn out at all. Seats are firm, no sloppiness found in most high milers. Very comparable to a low mileage newer car.

Anyone interested can come on out to the big island and I will loan it out for the week gratis...Pick you up at the airport.

 

I have a 400E (1992) and it is a super car. The 500E is to kill for if you are into these things

 

Little Al Unser was given one by Mercedes for winning Indy. Hatch and Sons is MA has offered many of these for sale. I think one of these and a Audi RS2 (same kind of a deal with Porsche) would be an interesting pair to own.

 

From a different era, when MB still left it to the engineers.

Every MB I have owned after 1995 has felt cheap and flimsy. The frequency of repairs was also much greater.

 

FABULOUS cars.... bullet proof from what I've heard... and a delight to drive.

Jedi

 

was this model made by Porsche for MB???

 

http://www.e500.org/

 

To the original poster who mentioned “the chase” , here goes my love affair with the E500. I've owned a 1994 E500 since 1997 and remains in my garage to this day with about 37,000 miles on it. Its still in near perfect condition and I've had the pleasure of driving it from my Ohio to Vegas home on a cross country trip a few years ago.

And now for the search, I've been Benz guy off and on since the late 80's and when the 500E came out in 1992 I never really considered it or test drove it because of the price. It listed for about $80K back then which was equal to their high end S-Classes, it just seemed priced completely out of whack with reality at that time. It was double the price of a regular W124 E-Class. Keep in mind last years BMW M5 price was just $85K so Benz asking $80K in 1992 money seemed extreme. Well time passed by and the production run ended. In 1995 I drove a used one just for the hell of it, the car was supposedly from the Ted Binion family of the Horseshoe Casino in Vegas, and boy the drive was a real eye opener. It felt like a different level of car, not in the sense of driving the top end of the line, it was like I've never driven a car that felt like this. It literally felt like a cross between a vault and an unstoppable freight train. It had that unique special feeling very few cars have that you remember it for years. I completely understood the justification for its high price, and I understood what the Porsche Mercedes union meant in building this car. And so my search began to find the right one. Ted Binion’s car was pretty rough. I found out Indycar driver Bobby Rahal had a E500 Limited for sale and I made arrangements to meet him at Mid Ohio race track for a test drive in the countryside surrounding the track. Bobby used to be a driver of a Mercedes powered Indycar so he obtained the car from a Mercedes North America VP who pulled to the strings to get it in the states. It was a black opal car with odd looking factory swirl type leather all E500 Limiteds had, plus it had about 50hp more compared to our USA models. The car was very tempting, but it too looked like it was driven hard and replacing that special leather, as it was worn, seemed like a tough task to achieve. Plus Bobby pretty much asked $80K for it with nearly 40k miles on it due to its rarity and the fact he was Bobby Rahal, so I passed. I found out about Hatch and Sons as they probably are the premier purveyors of anything 500E/E500 in the USA and came across a 1994 brilliant silver and black with mileage in the mid 20’s, we came to a price and it remains in my garage some 14 years later.

I think in general Mercedes creates good cars, but every 15 years or so they build something special and this is one of those cars. Plus like all great cars it has a great story behind it. The fact that it took 18 days to build, the fact that the factory reserved for Porsche’s best workers (Rossle-Bau factory) who were responsible for building every Porsche 959 built my car as well, the fact that Porsche was involved in part for its engineering makes it unique.

Its my personal opinion that the E500 maybe last of the great old-school Benzes. Mercedes used to have a slogan, "engineered like no other car in the world" and after driving this car, you know they meant it back then. There are plenty of extreme luxury sedans with 500 hp as the norm in today’s world, but there are just a handful of cars that transcend what you thought cars could be and thats what I feel an E500 is. Strong words I know, but its cool when you have real car guys see your car and approach you and want to talk about it. Its a true sleeper that I think I will never get bored with. Its rare to find a good used one as a lot of these cars were driven hard, but if you can find one with low mileage go for it. Theres a reason it was the choice of F1 drivers back in the day. In the time since I bought that E500, I’ve owned a Ferrari, a Lamborghini and a Maserati, they’ve all come and gone, the E500 remains.

 

Spot on.

 

No problems in my example. I don't put as many miles on mine as would like as its at my 2nd home. I can tell you however that the only problem I had with mine were seals that dried out, but given Vegas is like a oven thats to be expected.

 

Well said! That car was envisioned and built before DaimlerBenz AG's 'engineering above all' philosophy had to change due in large part to competition from Lexus. I would love to own one at some point. When the W124 (E-Class) and W126 (S-Class) were being produced, Mercedes-Benz was arguably the best manufacturer in the world. They definitely dropped the ball in the '90s with successive models that weren't up to par quality-wise, for many reasons.

I also consider the BMW E39 M5 (2000-2003) an equally fantastic car which defined an era in automotive history even though it was produced in much larger quantities and wasn't necessarily hand-built like the earlier M5 iterations. The W210 E55 AMG was good competition for it.