A few stats re 123 production

[VLayton]

Did you know?

Nearly 2.7 million 123 chassis cars were made?

Wagons (79-85) app 200,000

Coupes (77-85) app 100,000

leaving almost 2.4 million sedans model years 77-85

123's were technically made in years 1975-1986, but the above years are model years.

Over the course of production,

Sedans saw 12 engine options

Wagons saw 8 engine options

and Coupes saw 6 engine options.

The ratio of diesel to gas engined cars was about 11 to 9.

Coupes however, were about 3 to 17!

The USA market only got 4 engine options, in total (excluding AMG)

There were only about 75,000 turbo diesel 123 sedans

and about 8000 turbo diesel coupes

and about 28,300 turbo diesel wagons. For the whole world, ever!

How rare is your car?

Cheers, Vince

[Robby Ackerman]

Very interesting statistics. I'm surprised by the low number of turbodiesels, and I suspect that most of those were for the US market. In 1983 I ordered a 300D from the MB rep in Lusaka, Zambia. All they could sell me was the non-turbo. To get the turbodiesel I needed to place the order via a US distributor.

BTW, we still have two 123 300D's in the family. An '82 which is being driven by our daughter, a PhD candidate at Cornell, and our son an '83 who is also in graduate studies.

[Angelo]

I'm not sure how rare my 1977 280CE is, but I'm pretty sure they were not sold in the US until 1978. My VIN # is 12305312001706. I suspect it was one of the first 2000 made. Is this a safe guess?

[Tom Hanson]

That 280CE was the 1,706th one to leave the assembly line. The VIN sequences were quite simple back then. I heard from a reliable source that there are still over 160,000 W123 cars still running around in the USA. In the mid-80s, the 300DT was the most popular MB sold. It still retains a solid reputation as being simply a great car.

[VLayton]

In case anyone didn't but would like to know, my own chart tables of W123 production statistics are availible on my website, you can enjoy finding them or use this super short cut link:

www.club123d.org/events/page20.html