Talk:Mercedes-Benz 500 E

Sports car or armoured car?
The article describes the 500E as a sports car yet I recall reading in the press at the time of release that the primary reason for building in the powerful engine was because the car was (standard) fitted with armour plating -- the objective was to build an inconspicuous armoured car -- and the conventional engine just couldn't pull it due to the heavy weight. The Porsche plant was selected for fitting the engine into the chassis because it had experience with this sort of jobs and had spare capacity. Quite something different than a sports car. Are there any reference for this to be found online? The Seventh Taylor 22:28, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Not sure where you would have heard that; the 500E never came outfitted standard with armor plating of any kind. The principle behind the car was to create a high performance sedan in the vein of the 300SEL 6.3 and 450SEL 6.9. TheJoshdude 20:03, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

different years
Note: The 500E had 322bph and 354ft/lb in 1992 and in 1993 and 1994 had 315bph and 347ft/lb. (Only applicable to United States versions, European versions may be different)

Porsche manufacturing
To my knowledge, from the 1993 facelift on, E 500 models were not manufactured by Porsche anymore, but alongside the technically more or less identical 400 E (which shared all the body modifications and basically the M 119 engine with its famous brother) entirely by Mercedes in the Sindelfingen plant. Hence, there should have been no "final series" assembled by Porsche. Possibly I am mistaken with this assumption - pherhaps somebody has substantial information related to this. (v. Mudra 04.01.2011 20:30 CET) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.20.34.228 (talk) 21:33, 4 January 2012 (UTC)


 * No, this is a wide-spread myth. Both the 500 E and the E 500 and the special editions were assembled at Porsche's plant in Stuttgart Zuffenhausen. This was due to the fact that the car had widened fenders and did not fit through the assembly line in Sindelfingen. Since the 400 E/E 420, although sharing the same chassis with the 500 E/E 500 lacked the widened fenders, it fit through the line and hence could be produced in Sindelfingen.  See the references I put in the article regarding this specific issue. Rustler (talk) 21:43, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

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Electronically Limited Speed
This issue has been corrected. This vehicle was never electronically limited to only 155.3Mph. Mercedes engineered the transmission and rear differential so that when 155.3 was reached, the vehicle was at redline. This means no electronic modifications limited this vehicle to 155.3Mph. With different gearing the vehicle will move faster than originally intended. Nuggets TechTip (talk) 05:25, 30 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Incorrect. The car would almost have reached its rev limit at 250 km/h.  It could go a little faster  before the rev limiter would kick in at 6000 rpm.  But its electronic speed limit prevented it from accelerating beyond  250 km/h. The limit was programmed into the electronic control units that were connected via CAN. The 500 E was the first W124 featuring CAN, followed by the 400 E which was technically identically to its big brother.  When the car was built, Mercedes-Benz had the general policy (along with BMW and other German car manufacturers) that all cars were not to exceed 250 km/h, regardless of possible rev reserves when reaching this speed limit.  You could and can disable the speed limit in the respective control unit, but it wouldn't make a lot of difference in a 500 E.  It would make a difference in a 400 E though, since its engine is revving only at about 4600rpm when reaching 250 km/h (at least the US-Version, having a longer differential gear than the german version). Rustler (talk) 10:32, 20 April 2024 (UTC)