The T is finished - Mercedes-Benz no longer wants to build estate cars
For many years it was the dream of the upper middle class, but soon it will probably no longer come true: the Mercedes estate in front of the home. According to "Automobilwoche", the Stuttgart-based company has announced that it will gradually withdraw the Estate from its range. The Chinese and Americans prefer to drive SUVs. This also means the death of a piece of German automotive history.
And this despite the fact that Mercedes-Benz had only entered the estate car business late in the day. When they presented their first "station wagon" based on the 123 model series in 1977 and added it to the range in 1978, nobody expected it to be a great success. In the end, just under 200,000 T-Models were produced by 1986, which corresponded to around a tenth of total production and double the number of coupés. In the meantime, the proportion of estate cars in the C-Class and E-Class has reached over 40 percent, and the S 123s, like their successors in the 124 model series , have become classics for which collectors' prices are paid. Even the T-models of the much-maligned W 210 are slowly rising in favor with Mercedes fans.
The Daimler estate cars were also always so popular because they were unique in their combination of noblesse and utility, similar to a pair of Budapest shoes with steel toe caps or a Borsalino hat in accordance with the ECE 22 standard. In short: with a T-Model, you were always well dressed; on the building site as well as in front of the Palace Hotel. And now this multi-purpose vehicle is simply to disappear without replacement. Which is sad, but not really all that surprising. After all, Mercedes-Benz has been making an almost desperate effort to break with tradition for years.
Daimler justifies the decision by stating that it is simply not possible to have a model in the range for every market niche, no matter how small. A few years ago, Dieter Zetsche took a completely different view and expanded the portfolio considerably. But apparently, between four-door compact coupés, sporty coupé estate cars, huge SUV coupés and re-labeled Renault small delivery vans (surprisingly without a coupé version), there is simply no more room for a normal, family-friendly estate car. Perhaps they will compensate us with a three-door SUV convertible...
