Photo of the Week: 1992 500E

By Manuel Carrillo III - July 26, 2013

For this edition of Photo of the Week, we have an entire gallery for you. Forum user 944j brought this 1992 500E to our attention, and boy, oh boy, did it get our attention. Euro Classic Motors has this car on its Web site, but it is not listed for sale. We also noticed Bring a Trailer has it in their archives from 2010, so it appears this car has been off the market for a while, making its current owner happy. This is probably the best-looking 500E out there, and we’re happy this example has been captured with robust photography.

The Mercedes-Benz 500E came to our shores in 1992. As the first mid-size Mercedes with a V8, some say the 500E’s existence was a response to the success of the BMW M5. Whatever the car’s raison d’être, whoever got to own one and/or drive one was the winner. With a 322-horsepower 5.0-liter V8 flinging the 500E to 60 in six seconds, this was a quick sedan to be driving in the ’90s.

Some of that quickness can be blamed on Porsche — they lent a hand in the 500E’s development. The Porsche treatment included a stiffened chassis, a 0.9-inch lowered and stiffened suspension with upgraded geometry plus rear load leveling, a trunk-mounted battery and 16-inch wheels. The car’s assembly was a back-and-forth shuffle between the location Porsche used to build the 959, and Mercedes-Benz’s Sindelfingen plant. At $80,000 in 1992, this was an exotically priced vehicle, but a lot of exotic engineering was put into it. If you were to pick one up today, you would never see the 500E drop in value — pretty good for a car just entering its 20s.

Enjoy the gallery.