MERCEDES-BENZ W201
Designed and built to fastidious standards rarely seen on a mass-production car, the W201 quickly earned a reputation for soundness and quality. In fact Mercedes-Benz itself recognised that it had got somewhat carried away with the Baby Benz in its eagerness to show that it could make a smaller car without sacrificing its hard-won reputation for quality and, while commercially successful, the development and production costs of the W201 were simply too great to make a habit of doing it that way.
Of course, all that quality came at a price – a fairly ordinary 190E cost £10,640 in 1982 when a similar-spec Ford Sierra cost just under £8000. But the W201 wasn’t aimed at the Sierra buyer, and when put against the likes of the Saab 900, Audi 80 and BMW 320, then the Mercedes seemed much more reasonable, even if the W201 still usually ended up costing a little more while providing a lot less in terms of performance or toys. But of course buyers weren’t paying for those, they were paying for the peerless refinement, build quality and durability, and for being able to look down the bonnet at a three-pointed star even if it meant they had to slide their own sunroof, change their own gears and sit in unconditioned air.
As far as UK-spec cars are concerned, the W201 was launched in 1983 under the 190 and 190E badges with a carburettor or Bosch KE-Jetronic fuel injection respectively (when launched for lefthand drive markets the year before, only carburettor-fed cars were available). Both models used the same M102 1997cc four-cylinder overhead cam engine with 105bhp (190) or 122bhp (190E).
