Calling W123 fans - some nice statistics

Came across some interesting, though not unsurprising, stats in the Merc-sponsored UK owners' club mag:

The W123 remains unrivalled in terms of production figures. About 2.7 m were made, of which saloons were nearly 2.4 m.

King of the hill was the 240D (455 000) - you probably know that, Juergen...

No. 2 - 230E (442 000) No. 3 - 200D (378 000).

Production ran from Jan 76 to Nov 85.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Reply to
Dori A Schmetterling
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How is parts availability and price over there? From what I understand MB judt doubled the prices on (some? many?) parts here in the past two weeks and dropped prices on parts for newer cars. The examples I was given were a dash for a 123 went from 480 to 1000$ while some ML part went from 380 to 200. "They want us to buy new cars" is what I've heard.

There atr 32 113 headlight doors (at $500) in north american inventory but no blue 123 dashes left.

The 123 has been designated a "classic" here now so parts go through the classics center withcommensurate increaes in price.

Reply to
Richard Sexton

IMHO chances are big it will stay the leader in terms of production figures - nowadays car's life cycles are shorter (typically only 7 years with MBs) and there is many more models available than at the time of the W123.

Today there is less than 100.000 W123s left in Germany and of that are less than 10.000 240D, numbers are (still) shrinking fast: Year W123 240D

1989 1.185.943 179.016 1995 691.208 110.198 1996 590.280 93.827 1997 481.951 75.177 1998 366.670 54.595 1999 265.029 38.454 2000 181.956 25.633 2001 141.015 19.347 2002 106.883 14.447

Yes, of course ;-) ((454.780))

Point with the 240D was it was more powerful - yes, yes, talking about W123 diesels and power in the same sentence... - but didn't consume (noticeably) more diesel than 200D or 220D.

No, that is 230 (196.185) and 230E (245.876) combined (442.061)

Yes, 378.138

Next are 200 gas (376.087) and 300D (331.999).

Aaaaaah - time for extreme nutpicking ;-))) Production began in 12/1975 (280, 280E) and ended in 01/1986 (200T, 230TE, 280TE).

I have a short article about the W123 as coming classic car on the site at

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Oh, and YES, serious collector's tip is the MB Vaneo (W414) whose production will stop in summer - only 55.000 produced so far from all variants within 4 years...

V ehicle A attracted N ot E nough O rders

Juergen

Reply to
Juergen .

Seriously noone is buying a new dash - be it

480 or 1000, that is _much_ money for such old and basically worthless cars so the dash price is of no real siginificance as owners will seek for ways to repair/cover a broken dash.

The blue ones are the ones which cracked first (and that started _many_ years ago) - so no wonder there is none left.

Parts availabilty for technical parts here in Germany is _excellent_, one has the choice of brake pads, rotors, lights, filters etc. pp. but some interiour parts are already sold out (means specific parts in specific colours).

Here in Germany it will become an official classic in late January 2006 as premiere of the W123 series was at the end of January 1976 in France and so in 2006 the W123 series will turn 30.

Juergen

Reply to
Juergen .

You and I both know that but there are people who want to buy new dashes.

Of course, but compare the demand for blue 123 interior parts to 113 headlight doors :-)

filters but for Mercedes-only parts a 123 just got to be an expensive car.

OE and OEM parts are still cheap, it's the Mercedes-only ones that just got expensive

Doesn't time fly?

Reply to
Richard Sexton

Am I missing something? "The W123 remains unrivalled in terms of production figures. About 2.7 m

were made, of which saloons were nearly 2.4 m." Does this mean that there were only 300,000 CE's and wagons made in 9 years?

Reply to
jackbadger

Yes.

230 C 18.675 230 CE 29.858 280C 3.704 280CE 32.138 300CD 7.502 300CDT 8.007

------------------- Coupe total 99.884 (1)

240TD 38.897 300TD 37.140 300TDT 28.216 200T 18.855 230T 6.884 230TE 42.253 250T 7.704 280TE 19.775

------------------- T total 199.724 (1)

Coupe and T total 299.608 (1) ==========================

Production was 2.696.962 (1) (includes all, sedans, sedans LWB, coupes, T-models, partly bodied chassis, partly bodied chassis LWB, China assembled sedans) so it were 2.397.354 (1) sedans (incl. sedans LWB, partly bodied chassis and partly bodied chassis LWB).

So one can say:

2,7 million total, 2,4 million sedans, 200.000 T-models and 100.000 coupes.

Regular model with lowest number produced is 280C with 3.704, lowest special model is 230 partly bodied chassis with 265 vehicles, highest figure is 240D sedan with

454.780 followed by 200D with 378.138 and 300D with 331.999, highest gas is 230E with 245.876 followed by 200 with 217.315 and 230 with 196.185

(1) numbers calculated by me

Enough for the moment? ;-)

Juergen - driving one of 454.780

Reply to
Juergen .

Yes.

230 C 18.675 230 CE 29.858 280C 3.704 280CE 32.138 300CD 7.502 300CDT 8.007

------------------- Coupe total 99.884 (1)

240TD 38.897 300TD 37.140 300TDT 28.216 200T 18.855 230T 6.884 230TE 42.253 250T 7.704 280TE 19.775

------------------- T total 199.724 (1)

Coupe and T total 299.608 (1) ==========================

Production was 2.696.962 (1) (includes all, sedans, sedans LWB, coupes, T-models, partly bodied chassis, partly bodied chassis LWB, China assembled sedans) so it were 2.397.354 (1) sedans (incl. sedans LWB, partly bodied chassis and partly bodied chassis LWB).

So one can say:

2,7 million total, 2,4 million sedans, 200.000 T-models and 100.000 coupes.

Regular model with lowest number produced is 280C with 3.704, lowest special model is 230 partly bodied chassis with 265 vehicles, highest figure is 240D sedan with

454.780 followed by 200D with 378.138 and 300D with 331.999, highest gas is 230E with 245.876 followed by 200 with 217.315 (M102) plus 158.772 (M115 - so total of both 200 is 376.087) and 230 with 196.185

(1) numbers calculated by me

Enough for the moment? ;-)

Juergen - driving one of 454.780

Reply to
Juergen .

seems about half the number of T's built are still on the road in Australia. was the wagon released long after the sedan? Huge fan of this model, and the wagon has a huge following here as you can't kill the mechanicals and our dry climate is kind to the bodies.

Reply to
jackbadger

Very good point.

BTW, I did round the figures to make them easier to read; the article did show the exact numbers (since most people probably don't care about a few up or down). And, you may nitpick with DC as the production dates were given by them... :-)

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling

Reply to
Dori A Schmetterling

250T production 05/1978, pre-series 09/1977, ended 08/1982 280TE production 05/1978, pre-series 09/1977, ended 01/1986 300TD production 05/1978, pre-series 09/1977, ended 01/1986 240TD production 05/1978, pre-series 02/1978, ended 01/1986 230T production 05/1978, pre-series 02/1978, ended 04/1980 230TE production 04/1980, pre-series 10/1979, ended 01/1986 300TDT production 10/1980, pre-series 11/1979, ended 01/1986 200T production 11/1980, pre-series 05/1980, ended 01/1986

Cast in order of appearance ;-)

First sedans appeared in 12/1975:

280, 280E Followed 02/1976 by 200D, 220D, 240D, 300D, 200, 230,

T was not built in Stuttgart-Sindelfingen as sedans, but in the old Borgward factory in Bremen. That was more sort of a large-scale hand-build manufacture than a normal serial production - yearly total production number peaked at ca.

30.000 cars, original schedule was 18.000.

The 123 T-models still seem to exist anywhere in the world in numbers, but that is a fallacy.

Juergen

Reply to
Juergen .

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