If you’ve always had a soft spot for Mercedes-Benz’s eighties DTM-honed small saloon, the 190E Cosworth, and had filed it away in that part of the brain which acts as a cerebral garage for all of your ‘one day’ cars, then a perusal of the current classifieds – and the prices now being asked – might come as a shock: £20,000 with anywhere up to 150,000 miles under its wheels is now not uncommon for a desirable 2.5 16 valve manual from a specialist dealer.
A more stealthy gainer is the Porsche-built W124 500E – a contender for possibly the coolest car of all time. Left hand drive-only and so subtly styled that diehard enthusiasts alone will recognize its significance, was it really only £12,000 for a lovely example just four years ago?
Take heart though, as there are still relative bargains to be had from the three pointed star’s ‘modern classic’ back catalogue – especially this trio of coupé, estate and four-door.

 

E-Class Coupé (W124) 1987 – 1996

Elegance personified, the W124-based E-Class Coupé is the diametric response to today’s onslaught of gauche status symbol SUVs, while behind that timelessly debonair style there is a substance that, according to some observers (myself included), has never been bettered in terms of engineering longevity. Coming from a handsome family helps of course – even a clean poverty-spec 200E saloon sporting plastic wheel trims looks noble – but it’s the two-door that, in the best shades of black, blue, grey or silver and on the default eight-hole alloys, would look as comfortably at home parked outside an ambassadorial pile as a Bentley or Rolls-Royce of similar vintages.
Leather, automatic ‘box and an absence of body addenda are prerequisites, while the 3.2 litre straight-six engine has the best waft/whisk balance.
To those who say that you can’t buy style… £8,000 says you can.

 

C 55 (W203) 2004 – 2007

It took until the third generation C-Class for AMG to finally stand toe-to-toe with BMW’s Motorsport Division when Stuttgart’s C63 challenger stepped into the ring with the E90 M3 as an equal for 2008’s naturally aspirated small V8 saloon bout – while in their current guises it’s the AMG that’s now edged ahead…
Going further back, the original 190 E-replacing W202 C-Class spawned a pair of AMG variants, the C36 and C43 – the former a straight-six, the latter a V8 – and while both are justifiably regarded with affection, neither gave indication of what those third and fourth generation C-based AMGs would become. So what of the model in-between, the W203-based C55? It’s there that the Mercedes-Benz and AMG ingredients really began to blend, that the recipe was realized. A decade after it went out of production and already it looks comparatively small in relation to modern equivalents, making the notion that a 5439 cc V8 is nestled under the bonnet even more ludicrously brilliant. A relatively modest seller, the £12,000 being asked for a silver C55 estate sporting 75,000 miles will look an absolute steal in a year or two.

 

CLS 500 (W219) 2004 – 2010

Arguably the catalyst for the wave of post-millennial four-door coupés that followed in its wake, it’s easy to forget just how radical the W219 CLS looked on its launch in 2004. Admirably faithful in execution to the striking Vision CLS concept premiered a year earlier, early deposit placers would’ve been delighted upon taking delivery of a production car that looked entirely unchanged from the seductive proposal – something far from guaranteed, as the original Porsche Boxster proved…
Today the first generation CLS looks an extraordinarily fine used buy with £4500 being the entry point for long-MOT’d, 100,000 mile-plus 320 CDI V6 diesels – by far the most popular model – while for not much more a lower mileage petrol V6 350 CGI is not only one of the rarer variants, but also likely to have been a cosseted non-business purchase.
The eight-cylinder AMG 55 from 2005-06 and later AMG 63 from 2006-10 – the former supercharged, the latter a magnificent naturally aspirated powerplant – are the obvious headline grabbers and are near-irresistible, though there’s something alluring about the comparatively understated, V8-packing CLS 500 (ideally the more powerful 5.5 litre 2006-onwards revision) in either Brilliant Silver or Obsidian Black for similar money to the lower-powered aforementioned petrol V6. Just think of it as a latter-day W124 500E homage…

 

Caesar Barton