If the $83,655 sticker price of yesterday’s reviewed 2020 Mercedes-AMG GLC 63 shocks you, it comes across like an absolute bargain compared to what my 1986 W124 300E cost: $87,045, adjusted to 2019 dollars ($36,205 in 1985). Yowza! That’s for a 177hp six cylinder taxi cab, not a 468hp twin turbo artisanal V8 with AWD and every doo-dad known to modern man.
I’ve been beating the drum of how cars are cheaper than they used to be repeatedly here, and this is a graphic example. A 2020 350E starts at $54,050, before the Mercedes-typical big incentives. I’m sure one could be gotten for just under $50k.
I’ve got a couple of other Niedermeyer-mobile examples too.
Of course I would never have shelled out that kind of money to buy the Benz; it was a company car, and they paid the 5 year lease at $500/month (that’s $1200 adjusted). I did buy the 16″ BBS wheels from Tire Rack. And I bought the car at the end of the lease for $13,000 ($26k adjusted), which was well below the stated residual, thanks to Mercedes’ price bubble being popped some by the Lexus LS. I low balled the bank, and they took it, not having to deal with it any further. That was more like it, especially since I sold it for $13,900 privately two years later.
Ah, the good old days; a free car, and then it made me some money too. But then cars are cheaper now, so who’s complaining?
W did buy the 1985 Cherokee with our own money a year earlier, and that was zippy too: $16,000 ($40k adjusted) for a low-trim Pioneer but with a fair number of options (V6, auto, Select-Trac, a/c, and some convenience items). And the bank loan interest rate was in the double digits. the loan payment was a huge hit every month. I refinanced it after a year with a credit union because rates were coming down.
A 2020 Cherokee starts at $25,700. And there’s undoubtedly incentives on them. If you tried hard, you could probably get one for about one half of what we paid for ours. Of course the prestige factor of a Cherokee in 1985 was vastly higher than one today, as they were new and “hot”. And that applies to the 300E too; who even wants a new E Class?
And in 1992, we paid a painful $22,000 ($41k adjusted) for a new Grand Caravan, a basic LE but also with a boatload of options, as they tended to come back then and you wanted some of the more desirable features that are of course long standard. And what do Grand Caravans go for in 2020? Some $22-24k in actual transaction prices. Or almost one half of what we paid.
And I paid a whopping $500 for my 1966 F100 back there in 1987; that’s an outrageous $1,138 in today’s money. What was I thinking?
You got any classic sticker shock stories?
As far as the Mercedes-Benz, I think it’s because Mercedes-Benz products back then were much more exclusive and much nicer, relative to what everyone else was building, than they are now. The 300 E of the day was an heirloom product. These days, they chase lease volume.
At the same time, you’re right. Mercedes-Benz cars were overpriced because there was no alternative. BMWs, Saabs, Alfa Romeos and Volvos were more quirky enthusiast vehicles. Prestigious and expensive, but not luxurious. There wasn’t much luxury in standing on the roadside next to your broken-down Jaguar or Sterling. And nothing out of Detroit could hold a candle from a quality or balance perspective. The Lexus LS finally disrupted Mercedes-Benz’ monopoly on that kind of car.
I actually test-drove a 2017 E 300 (the current generation) at CarMax a couple of weeks ago, and was deeply unimpressed. While the old E’s base 3.5-liter V6 was a sweetheart, the base 2.0T in the E 300 is soul-less and struggles under power. The leatherette felt rough and cheap, and (as Jim pointed out) they love to leave button blanks everywhere, reminding you of all the options you didn’t select. Even the design is kind of droopy and poorly executed.
As Jamie Kitman of Automobile magazine famously said about his W124 convertible, “It was made when Mecedes’ were built to a standard, not a price.”
…which is a load of hooey, no matter how often it’s parrotted by how many MB fanboys (of whatever gender). Mass-produced cars of every marque and all their parts are built to very detailed specifications, all of which include standards (for materials, construction, durability, every relevant aspect of performance, fit/finish…) and cost constraints. That’s how carmaking works, and has since almost forever. Yes, even at Daimler-Benz.
Quiet, Buzzkill!
(just kidding)
Actually there is some real truth to that. And the proof was that after Lexus came along in 1990 or so, Mercedes had to completely change their game in order to lower prices and compete. The W124’s replacement, the W210, was noticeably cheaper in the quality of its materials, switch gear, and general quality vibe. It had to be built to a price, to stay competitive with Lexus. And it really showed.
I think we’re interpreting the idea differently. To me the Kitman quote sounds like a claim that pre-W210 MBs were specced and built without regard to piece or process cost, and that just doesn’t ring right for me.
The W210 might have been competitive with the Lexus on price, but if we’re talking about quality and dependability I’ll take the Lexus, thanks. Did DB think they could just cheapen the car and then everyone would abandon Lexus and go back to buying Mercedes? Did they think all they had to do was make their window stickers matchy-matchy with Lexus’ and everything would be fine?
And more to the point, does anyone think the Lexus was _not_ built to a price? To me, it looked like Toyota built a better car to the price than DB did.
Yes, Mercedes had a virtual monopoly on the prestige market and milked it for everything they could – which was until the Lexus came out.
It would be interesting to find some ’80s car magazines with grey market prices for Mercedes-Benz products advertised in the classifieds. They were considerably cheaper in West Germany than in the United States, by a margin significant enough for Daimler-Benz to buy the US Congress and get the laws changed expressly to protect their ‘right’ to gouge Americans. US market cars had expensive emissions controls, real bumpers, door beams and much higher equipment levels than European market cars, but the price difference still left many thousands of dollars to make the cars compliant with California emissions laws at a profit for a number of certification companies.
They were a fair amount cheaper. But then almost invariably they weren’t equipped as well as the official US imports, which came pretty loaded, for the times. European W124s (and other cars) were essentially strippers, and had to be optioned to avoid them being taxi-grade. But even fairly well optioned European cars were generally never quite as loaded as the official imports.
This “Mercedes bought off Congress so they could keep overcharging American buyers” thing is an enduring mythological tale, but that’s really not an accurate picture of what happened. Please see my comment and links here.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/house-bill/2628
You might want to read this bill and research how Mercedes-Benz brought it about.
https://autoweek.com/article/car-life/who-really-benefits-25-year-import-rule
Sometimes a story is true but SEO can be used to make it hard to source, like when a big corporation is willing to buy politicians to take advantage of its customers.
I’m very familiar with the Imported Vehicle Safety Compliance Act of 1988, thanks. It looks like you might not be very familiar with the very valid reason why an automaker would strongly oppose the import of vehicles built and intended for another market: Europe’s safety and emissions regulations are based on a homologation system of reciprocally-recognised type approvals: the maker submits the vehicle or regulated equipment for scrutineering by a government-accredited test lab. If all the tests are passed, the vehicle or component is granted a type approval by the test lab’s country’s government. Then the vehicle or component is legal for sale and use in all countries recognizing the applicable regulations. If a country’s government suspects a noncompliance, if they go to the vehicle maker and say “You have a problem”, the maker says “[Country] issued a valid type-approval, which you’re legally obliged to accept because you signed the UNECE 1958 Agreement”, so the suspicious party has to take it up with the government that issued the type-approval. Then it’s up to that government to decide whether to do anything about it. This presents the opportunity for abuse of the system both offensively and defensively: France might offensively weaponise it by telling Germany “Hey, there’s a compliance problem with these Audis”, and then Germany, rather than do something that could exert costs on their auto industry, might defensively weaponise it by replying “Ho hum, looks like it might rain”. Type approvals are very rarely cancelled or suspended; that’s why it was such big news when approvals started geting pulled in Dieselgate.
We don’t do it that way in North America; we have a totally different system called self-certification: the automaker or importer themself certifies that the vehicle or regulated component meets all applicable requirements of all applicable regulations. Then if the US or Canadian Government suspects a noncompliance, they can go directly to the automaker and say “Prove the compliance” (or “Fix the noncompliance”) and the automaker or importer has to do so.
There is no provision for the automaker to say “That’s not our vehicle/component/responsibility; that one was meant for Austria/Sweden/Germany”; whatever maker or importer’s name is on it, that’s who’s legally responsible.
For that reason, grey-market vehicles are an enormous liability for the automaker. Someone gets hurt or killed in a crash, let’s say, in a grey-market Mercedes. Even though that particular Mercedes was not designed, engineered, built, or intended for the US market, MBNA has significant legal exposure because the car is considered theirs.
Yes, there’s also an element of profit management through price control, but it is disingenuous and not accurate to say Mercedes bought congress to protect their profits.
As for the Autoweek article: the 25-year rule is a related but different matter. There are “Bad ol’ mean ol’ DOT and EPA and Congress and Mercedes won’t let me bring in a 2013 Porsche Filmcan BiTurbo GTG that’s considered perfectly safe on the Autobahn, and it’s just so they can protect their profits!!!111!!1!!!1!” whingefests all over the auto enthusiast press and online forums, etc.
There’s a sound argument to be made that if the goal is to maximise the safety and minimise the emissions of privately-imported cars, then newer ones would be better than older ones. But in fact, the regulatory goal is to maximise the compliance of vehicles on US roads with US regulations, and so the 25-year rule was chosen to allow for enthusiast imports while making it most likely that such vehicles will be used for occasional fun, not for daily commuting.
Canada has a 15-year rule instead, so there’s a (far) greater proportion of foreign-spec vehicles in Canadian traffic. It makes for fun car spotting, but it also makes safety problems and drives up insurance costs.
Also, gee-moh-nee, shock and surprise, that linked Autoweek article is full of nonsense. Here’s just one of many stinkers: “It’s reasonable to assume that, say, a 2003 Belgian-spec car would comply with most American safety/emissions requirements with zero modification.”
That’s only reasonable to assume if one doesn’t know what the hell one is talking about and is guessing, assuming, and making it up as one goes along. No, actually, in fact it’s practically guaranteed that a 2003 Belgian-spec car would NOT comly with most American safety and emissions requirements as built, and there’s a strong likelihood such a car could not readily be made compliant with US regs.
Mercedes-Benz had no legal liability for grey market imports, but they did have commercial liability in the form of loss of reputation from stories about badly modified cars catching fire. Did that real liability trump the rights of a free people? It certainly did for their rentable legislators.
The proof is in the pudding. People seem to think that CNN invented lying at some point in the 2015-2016 time frame. That isn’t the case though. The strategically proliferated stories about the perils of grey market car buying have lost their hold on the public. 1980s cars are now collectible. After decades of grey market cars having very little value relative to similar federalized ones, their value today is basically intrinsic. Many of them have stood the tests of time and are valued on how well they perform, how rare they are, and how they look. While sealed beam headlights and big bumpers once meant that a 450SEL was a premium MBUSA genuine article, today they mean that it is uglier and slower than a grey market 450SEL. The propaganda has lost its impact over time and the truth is now apparent.
I wish it wasn’t so. My family grossly overpaid for two new West German cars when we could have paid much less for the same or received much more by not falling for the lies.
CJ, I don’t claim to be always right, but my professional reputation’s pretty good. It (and my ability to carry on buying groceries, gasoline, and other such necessities) directly depends in large part on my accurate knowledge of how the world’s vehicle regulatory systems work now and how they worked in the past. I’m sorry it upsets you so that the grey market situation was a lot more complex than German-automaker-trampled-Americans’-Freedom, but…well…it was.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You are so right. I rented an E-Class in 2012 with that sweet 3.5 liter 6. I was going nearly 90 mph and did not know it (it was late and the highway was empty).
Fast forward to 2018 – I was given a 300E as a service loaner while my GLK got a 10k service. What a disappointment. The 2 liter 4 was still clearly a 4, despite the Merc treament, and the interior looked and felt cheap, and the doors tinny. Clearly Merc was responding to the new Euro mandates regarding mileage (and CO2 for all I know), but it felt no better than an Accord.
I couldn’t help but wonder how many people would con themselves into buying one of these for the sake of a three-pointed star. . .
$36k and you didn’t get symmetrical mirrors.
Good one! 🙂
And they weren’t even optional!
Not only that. My W124’s symmetrical mirrors didn’t even retract. I can’t think of anytime in the past 120 years where door/wing mirror on a car couldn’t be swung out of the way. The list price of my 1993 W124 was a whooping US$112,000 new here.
Lucky. The bog standard German-spec models were even less symmetrical, since passenger-side wing mirrors were optional altogether. And seeing one with just one mirror was not a rare occurrence.
I’ve got another good one. My parents paid right at $17,000.00 in 1979 for our new 240D. That’s right at $60,172.00 in 2020 money, for a 62 horsepower tractor with an AM radio, manual transmission, vinyl (MBTex) and no right hand mirror (though it did have power windows and power sunroof). A 2020 E Class is a relative steal, though I am sure the 240D is puttering around somewhere still yet.
Wow. My Dad bought a new 1978 Mark V Cartier that had a retail price of close to $16K (window sticker attached) with a fair number of options. I have the sales receipt here somewhere. I know he got a good discount and paid a total of around $13.5K out the door for the car. I doubt that M-B was giving discounts in those days…
I really don’t know what my parents were thinking with the 240D…..I remember at age 9 at the time, wondering why we couldn’t have a Caprice Estate or Custom Cruiser like everyone else at school. But Mom drove the 240D for 12 or 13 years so I guess they got their money out of it.
I think the Mercedes-Benz dealer in my hometown did a much better job at indoctrinating whole families. There were quite a few 220Ds, 240Ds, 300Ds, 300TDs, and 300SDs around town. There were even a couple of 300CDs. The children of diesel Benzes were all prepared to hold forth at length about their incredible durability and safety. The turbo-diesel-drivers’ kids had also bought into a fantasy of their 119 horsepower station wagons being faster than six cylinder BMWs and four cylinder Porsches. They were all well versed in the grill badges Mercedes-Benz used to hand out to owners who kept their cars long enough to hit the sorts of mileages one might expect of a Honda Accord.
We had really hot summers back then in central Virginia. I remember the pavement getting soft on the main road through town and hundred degree temperatures being common. No matter how superior a 240D was supposed to be relative to a Chrysler Lebaron, there was no getting around the fact that the German cars’ air-conditioning systems couldn’t compete with those of Mopar or GM during the summer.
Twelve years ago, our 2008 Prius with one option package plus floor mats, stickered for about the same price as a 2020 Prius L Eco. Our package had a few small items that today require the $1200 premium for the next level LE, or even the additional $2800 on top of that for the XLE,but on the other hand the 2020 Eco is a better car, with more power, much better fuel economy and additional safety features. I’ll leave styling out of the picture.
While true in most cases my Deadly Sin 74 911 was 10K in 1974 which is about 55K today and is short quite a bit of a new 911. Gratuitous pic alert!
Hmm, won’t upload…
I guess I have stayed in a fairly narrow range. My 85 GTI, 5 speed and fully loaded was about $12k, so about $28,500 now. My 1 year old Ford Club Wagon in 1995 was $20k, so $33,500 now. My 2007 Honda Fit Sport automatic came in at about $17k ($21,500) and my Sedona (after incentives) works out to about $22k today.
In contrast, my father’s 72 Mark IV was about $10k, so about $61k today.
I see a pattern – each of your examples was what everyone wanted and were what those with the means chose. In other words, you bought highly popular cars. Popular always costs more.
It’s hard to imagine that Paul was a slave to automotive fashion!
I was young (32). And making big bucks.
And I was in good company with my buff book heroes. Brock Yates bought himself a white 300E with blue interior like mine, and David E. Davis actually bought a Cherokee.
In 1986 my sister was attending UVA. In-state tuition with room & board plus books was about $6,000 a year. A new construction house right off my parents’ neighborhood was about $99,000. Today, UVA in-state attendance is $32,432 with the same components. Out of state was about twice as much as in-state then and is about twice as much now. The houses are now thirty five years old and have roughly doubled in cost relative to inflation. Thank God that the government doesn’t get involved in trying to make cars more affordable and accessible, like they have with student loans and mortgages.
I wish it was possible to get a white car with a blue interior again, its such a good looking combination. Why do all car interiors have to be black today?
Oh, now, c’mon, not ALL car interiors are black. Some are grey! Some are beige!
(that is: yes, I agree with you.)
How many of us enjoy a monthly paycheck that has kept up with (or surpassed) the inflation rate since 1986?
A middle class American’s 1986 salary of $35K would be $81,640 in 2019 dollars if adjusted for inflation all these years.
Thanks for making the point I was about to make, mark. It’s why I haven’t bought a NEW car since 1985.
In 1986 I was making minimum wage while in high school. $3.35/hr in California. If I had kept that same job and the wage had only increased via inflation it would pay $7.58 today. Instead the minimum wage in CA is now $12 so significantly better.
But if I compare my first professional career job right after college (1992) and compare it to my income today after adjusting for inflation? It’s still significantly higher while I work significantly less hours, note that I also completely gave up on my career a decade ago near a financial high point and started over instead of relying on someone else to provide for me while helping them get ahead more than they were helping me. I’d guess many people fall into this same scenario but I can accept that many others may not for various reasons, many of which may be beyond their direct control. But zero handouts or family money or other fallback safety nets in my scenario.
It’s a bit of a tough question though since you’d really want to start by comparing people who are somewhat established in a career at the start, so figure maybe age 35? If that’s you in 1986, then that’d make you 69 years old this year, you’re perhaps not the same go-getter you were back then.
But who really cares since as far as cars are concerned Paul just showed that you don’t need to earn that much more to afford an equivalent car. There’s virtually no area of his 1986 300E that isn’t already bettered by a mid-level Camry or whatever today for less than $30k in today’s money. Size, mpg, power, safety, speed, required maintenance, resale value, etc.
The median hourly earnings for hourly and salaried workers in 1985 was $6.03. That’s $14.20 in 2018 dollars.
The median hourly earnings for hourly and salaried workers in 2018 was….$14.99. A very modest increase, but hardly the declines you guys are asserting.
The median household income in 1985 was $23,620, which is $55,620 in 2018 dollars.
The median household income in 2018 was….$63,179. Thta’s a 14% increase. Not great, but again, not the declines you guys are asserting.
Let’s use real statistics, not your personal experience. Maybe you need some career evaluation?
This is one of those times when I just pop in here on one of the later comments, and the topic has veered into something else entirely.
Maybe I should just talk about scrambled eggs, or Tolad 9308. Or infrasound.
Or car stuff.
Paul, I think the official FED inflation figures have been highly underestimated since the mid 1980’s when they started doctoring the stats with hedonics and other dubious modifiers. Shadow stats graph in link shows inflation, as measured by Shadow stats using pre 1980 FED methodology, to be roughly twice as high as what has been reported in recent decades.
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/inflation-charts
So you’re suggesting that my ’86 Mercedes cost $170k in 2019 dollars? Hmmm. That’s a tough one to swallow?
This site is about old car, it is natural that everyone has opinion about how good those good old days. While W124 Mercedes is a very nice automobile even by today’s standards. But if it is put into comparison test against today’s mid size sedans like Accord, Camry and Passat, W124 can not match. In almost aspects today’s vehicles are much better in engine, chassis, safety and convenience/comfort with cost around $30k.
If you look at the today’s E class, the advantage is even more obvious. Set aside your love of W124, the new E class sedan is much easy to love and own, thanks to globalization of manufacturing, new high technology and financial engineering. Yes, you argue it is built with old craftsmen standards. The same thing you can say today’s Camry is not well built as the third generation Camry. But I think you have much better chance to live in a new Camry in an accident than the old one. And new Camry is much cheaper to own — Toyota now offers 0% financing for 60 months. In late 1980s, you could never dream about this deal.
Also, Lexus had put a lot of pressure to Mercedes in 90s, but now it is another way around. Lexus is in crisis despite it’s super reliable reputation. The three German band vehicles are putting out much better cars these days.
My dad bought his dream car in 1985… a Buick Riviera. It was $20,000 in 85 money. 50k by today’s numbers.
In 2003 we bought our first new car, a Mercury Mountaineer with every single option box checked. Sticker was $40,195. The closest modern equivalent would of course be an Explorer which carries a sticker of $62,810. What I found says $40K in 2003 is worth $56k in 2020.However in 2003 the Eddie Bauer Explorer with all the option boxes checked was just under $45k which would be $63K today.
Ya’ll seemed to have missed the part where Savvy Shopper Paul bought the Benz NOT when it was new, but when it was almost 6 years old, at the end of the 5 year lease.
A practice that I strongly approve of. The cost of the steep depreciation curve on luxury cars is most painful to the checking account balance.
Only after he had his company lease it at $500 1986 dollars per month for 60 months. So that’s $30k in 1986 dollars for lease payments plus the buyout at the end. He stated that equates to $1200 a month in today’s money which is also more than the offered lease payment on the referenced AMG.
Again I suggest: With this used car purchase Paul proved to be a Smart Savvy Shopper; buying a known to be well maintained used car at almost zero financial and mechanical risk to him.
I just got my tag renewals, Chatham County Georgia assigned a taxable value for my 87 300E at 40 bucks, for an Ad Valorem tax of $1.78. This must be the minimum assignable value as my 55 Plymouth is assessed the same amounts.
my first car 78 ford fiesta bought for 750 in 1985 would be about 1800 in todays dollars. With certainly far fewer gems today at those price points than 85.
My first new car 1993 Acura integra bought in 93 for 14800 today at 26319.00 more options but not nearly as fun.
But in both cases certainly safer today than in 85 or 93. but not nearly as reliable.
well, people do like to see all the old car stuff they can get here. and as well, the Gen 1 Seville or Cadillacs often enough comes up in chat along side the Benz
so… here’s the Monroney Sticker for my 1979 Cadillac Seville. although, well equipped and tapping approx. $66,000 in today’s money. a fully decked out Seville Elegante’ with the digital trip computer and moon-roof in that final production year for Gen1 would roll out at just under $80,000 USD now. enjoy!
I love it. About $3K more than my Dad’s 1978 Mark V from the year before (see above for its window sticker). And they both had CB radios! There was quite a bit of inflation going on during those years so even one year later prices were up – the 1979 Mark V was quite a bit more than the 1978.
+1 i love the Marks, III, IV, V & VII LSC. i’ll go check out your sticker.
and yep, mine has the top of line head unit for that year. as seen, it was CRAZY expensive. but over 40yrs on..CB and 8-track both still working and in use. heres my most recent 8-track tape purchase for some more of those fine summer days soon enough.
The one I always remember is the 1976 Rover 3500 SD1. £4750 at launch, now £35k. The BMW 323i was the same price. the 3 series now starts at £32.5k
In 1971, Dad paid £1100 for a Hillman Hunter – 1.7 litres of steady family car. That’s around £16000 now, or Fiesta money, never mind Focus or Mondeo.
1968 Jaguar XJ6 2.8 litre £1767. Or £30k now!