W123 vs W124: Which One Is Really Peak Mercedes?

Two cars. Same three-pointed star. Roughly the same job description. And a question that Mercedes fans have been arguing about for decades.

I’ve got both here — my own W123 and a borrowed W124 C124 coupe — and I’ve just driven them back to back on a sunny day. Which one is the better car? And which one is Peak Mercedes? Those turn out to be two completely different questions.

The W123: The One That Changed Everything

The 123 launched in 1975, and it didn’t arrive into a vacuum. Mercedes already had a formidable reputation for engineering, and their cars cost roughly twice as much as rivals because — the argument went — they were twice as good. The W123 was the car that had to prove it.

And you can tell it’s a Mercedes from fifty paces. It carries the same sharp, stately look as the W116 S-Class, a car many people at the time were calling the best in the world. But there are little details everywhere that do actual work rather than just look pretty.

Take the ribbed lights, front and rear. Distinctive, yes. But the ribs mean the lights stay visible even when they’re caked in dirt, road grime, or snow. Then there’s the chrome side trim, shaped and positioned specifically so rain and spray don’t splash up the side windows in bad weather. Better visibility, better safety.

The indicators wrap around from the front into the side of the car. Neater look, sure — but it also means you can tell from any angle which way the car is turning.

Small tricks. They add up.

The Engineering You Can Hear

Shut the door on a W123 and you get that sound. That deep, solid thunk that tells you immediately you’re not in a Granada. The sheet metal is thick and heavy, the interior is laid out with total clarity, and every switch clicks and clunks exactly as it should. Fifty years on, in most examples, it all still works.

This was Mercedes building cars up to a standard rather than down to a price. And it wasn’t just brawn either. Fuel injection on the 230 and 280 improved performance, economy, smoothness, and reliability. You could have electric windows, heated seats, and later ABS — none of which you’d find on a Ford Granada.

Quality cost money. At launch, the 123 was 20% more expensive than most rivals. Even into the 1980s, a fairly basic 200 with a 2.0-litre petrol cost 20% more than the then-new Audi 100. This was never a cheap runaround.

And yet people couldn’t get enough. At launch there was a twelve-month waiting list. Year-old examples were trading for 20% above list price.

What It’s Actually Like to Drive

The suspension is carried over from the W115 — the first all-new suspension Mercedes had designed since the Second World War. It’s smooth, it’s floaty, and it irons out bumps without a murmur. You feel the heft of the car, and it just absorbs everything.

It is not a sporty BMW. Flick the steering and there’s a fair amount of roll. If you get seasick, don’t take one around the Nürburgring. But as a cruising experience, it’s wonderful. Relaxed, smooth, and complemented by engines that are equally smooth if they’re in good health.

I drove three and a half hours to get to our filming location today, had a two-minute break for a bottle of water, jumped straight into this, and I’m as calm as I was when I set off this morning. That’s what these cars do.

There was something for everyone, too — petrols, diesels, turbo diesels, saloons, coupes, and the supremely practical estate. All bombproof. All practical. All quietly telling the world you were a cut above the man in the Granada.

Over ten-plus years, Mercedes sold 2.7 million of them. And when they finished being executive expresses or family wagons in Europe, huge numbers were exported to Africa, where they lived another two or three hundred thousand miles with minimal maintenance.

The W124: Evolution, Not Revolution

When 1984’s W124 arrived, the brief was simple. Take what worked and make it better.

Bruno Sacco, fresh off several styling triumphs, was told to design a successor that was modern and contemporary but still unmistakably a Mercedes. And he nailed it. You’ve still got the horizontal lights, the wraparound indicators, the big grille with the star on top. But the grille is more nea tly integrated, the headlights are raked back for a more aerodynamic nose, the bumpers are body-coloured and tapered.

All that slippery work paid off. In its most aerodynamic form, the W124 had a drag coefficient of just 0.28 — one of the lowest of any car you could buy at the time. Partly the front end, partly plastic undertrays diverting air underneath.

Better aerodynamics improve everything. Performance, because you cut through the air more easily. Efficiency, because you need smaller engines to do the same job. Refinement, because you’re not punching through the wind as hard.

Immediately, the 124 was a quantifiable step forward.

Sharper Where It Counted

Inside, you get all the Mercedes staples — the big three dials, the slab of burr wood, the chunky armrest, the leather and wood trim. But the edges are a little more rounded, the switchgear a little more modern, and later cars got airbags. The glovebox doesn’t seem to suffer the horrible droop that most 123s do. Ask me how I know about that one.

Under the skin, extensive bracing made the car more rigid and more refined. The pillarless coupe and convertible are actually around 100 kilos heavier than their saloon counterparts, purely so they’d stay rigid and avoid scuttle shake or rattles. Push the buttons down and the windows drop with nothing in the way at all. On a day like today, with everything open, it feels fantastic.

Then there’s the handling. Since the 123 came out, BMW had become more prominent in the executive class, offering comfort and corners. The 123, for all its brilliance, was more wallowy barge than sharp handler. Mercedes wouldn’t have that.

They took the multi-link rear suspension from the W201 — the 190E — and put it in the 124. The result is dramatic. Weave around a lorry in a 124 and it’s so much neater. No roll, no wallow, no being thrown across the cabin. The nose is dartier. You can fling it around and still feel comfortable.

It doesn’t feel like a BMW. But it feels about the sportiest a Mercedes saloon had felt up to that point.

Engines, Performance, and the 500E

The old carb-fed engines were largely ditched. In their place came a host of fuel-injected units — more powerful petrols, bigger capacities up to 3.2 litres and six cylinders, plus turbo diesels in multiple capacities and five-cylinder options with a proper rumble.

And whereas the 123 was only ever a cruiser — even in 280 guise it was never promoted as a speed demon — the 124 got genuine performance models. The Porsche-built 500E used a big V8 from the R107 with a bespoke widebody shell that wouldn’t even fit down Mercedes’ own production line, so Porsche built it instead. Then there was the aftermarket stuff from AMG, including the legendary Hammer.

If you’re a Mercedes fan, you know what that means.

The Verdict, Split in Two

Here’s where it gets interesting, because the answer depends on what you’re actually asking.

If you’re asking which is the better car, you have to hand it to the 124. Split hairs and get into the details: it’s slightly faster, slightly more economical, slightly more refined, slightly more practical, slightly better equipped. And these days, like for like, you’ll pay between half and two-thirds of the price of a 123 for one. It is, on paper and on the road, the better machine. Frankly, there may not be a better value classic out there.

But that’s not the same as being the most important car.

The 123 is the one that moved the game forward. It’s the car that acquired the classic status. It’s the one that defined what a Mercedes-Benz was for an entire generation of drivers — and not just in Europe, but in Africa, the Middle East, and everywhere else they ended up living second and third lives.

Anywhere you take one, in any country, someone will tell you they remember these cars and that they love them. I’ve had thumbs up at a Ford meet. I’ve had questions at the Nürburgring.

And there’s a broader argument worth making. Mercedes arguably achieved not just their best, but Peak Car with the 123. The car as an entity didn’t really get justifiably or quantifiably better than this. Improvements came — performance, economy, safety — but nothing gargantuan. Nothing that made so many significant jumps across the board at once.

So the 124 wins the comparison. The 123 wins the history books. And honestly? That feels about right.