When it comes to car types, I am a very simple person with simple tastes. I’m a big fan of Coupés hence my C70, I also like 4×4’s like Range Rovers & Land Rover Discovery’s and last but not least, I am a massive fan of Luxury Land Barges like Audi A8’s, BMW 7-Series’ & the Jaguar XJ Series. Out of the pick though, if I had to pick a favourite Luxury Land Barge, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class has to top the list. Whether it be for it’s technological advancements, out & out luxury or even it’s capabilities, the big Merc will always be my pick. Throughout the generations though, there’s only one that really ticks all boxes and that’s the MK3, otherwise known as the ‘W140’.

With this as a signature S-Class piece, when the W140 was put on sale in 1991, it too like it’s predecessors was filled to the brim with never-before technology. These included Traction Control & ESP, Multiple Airbags, Double Glazed Windows, Rain Sensing Wipers, Parking Poles/Sensors, Soft Close Doors & Boot/Trunk, Multi Link Suspension all round, Rear Self-Levelling Suspension as well as much more.

It’s no surprise that the ‘W140’ had so much technology. Even though the car itself ran throughout the majority of the ’90s, the Development of the ‘W140’ actually started in the very early ’80s and was 10 years in the making before actually going on sale 18 months after it was originally meant to. It cost Mercedes-Benz so much money to develop ($1B Dollars to be exact) that many high up MB Employees either left or were sacked because of how much it was actually costing the company to develop & build. Prior to this, no other Mercedes in the world cost $1B Dollars to develop and build. This did however mean that the ‘W140’ was the last over-engineered MB to ever be signed off. the ‘W220’ that followed in 1998, while a technological masterpiece, was built to a price compared to its predecessor.

Design was headed by the one & only Bruno Sacco. The W140 looked a lot like the ‘W124’ E-Class & the ‘W201’ 190E of the same age and that’s because it was within Bruno’s best interests to create a ‘Family Tree’ look to the Mercedes-Benz line-up at the time. This aspect also followed through to the interiors as well. It’s a known thing that if you couldn’t quite stretch to the price of a well-specced W140, you could go for a W124 instead and get a very similar product albeit in a smaller package. Regardless of what Mercedes you got at the time though, you were getting a product that was renown for having an impeccable build quality. With the W140 though, the bosses at Mercedes-Benz really took the crown when it came to the ‘Large Luxury Vehicle’ class. Compared to its rivals like the Lexus LS400 and the BMW 7-Series, the S-Class was in a completely different league Luxury wise to the rest of it’s competition.

Wood and real Leather adorns every single area of the interior, it has electrically operated seats with the option of having the rear two electrically operated and reclining as well. you have Vanity Mirrors for all passengers, 4 Zone Climate Control with vents all over the place. you could also option to have your S-Class as a 4-seater as well as a typical 5-seater with a rear bench. Memory Adjustable Seats make sure you are always able to get comfortable behind the wheel. You could also option an electronically operated rear sunshade that rises to block out the sun. Being the ’90s, the S-Class was one of the first cars to have the ability to have factory fitted Phones to it. On the earlier models, you also had parking poles in the rear quarter panels as rudimentary rear parking sensors as well. Compared to the competition, the S-Class cosseted you in sublime luxury & refinement and overall, like the name suggests – It gave the owner a sense of absolute Class!

Like all luxury vehicles of the time, there was a plethora of engines available, ranging from low powered 6 Cylinder units all the way up to 8 Cylinder & 12 Cylinder units, there was an S-Class for anyone and everyone. For the fuel savvy Businessman/Woman, there was also a Turbo Diesel engine available as well, a first for the S-Class and a first for Luxury Cars in general. The W140 was also available with both an Automatic & Manual transmission depending on what engine you picked. The 8 & 12 Cylinder models exclusively came in either a 4 Speed or 5 Speed Automatic whereas the 6 Cylinder models could be optioned with a typical 5 Speed Manual Gearbox as well as an Auto. 

The ‘W140’ came in 4 different body styles. these consisted of a ‘SWB’ Saloon, a ‘LWB’ Saloon, a stretched limo esque saloon called the Pullman & a 2-door Coupé known internally as the ‘C140’. Wheelbases varied from 119.7 inches for the ‘SWB’, 123.6 inches for the ‘LWB’, 115.9 inches for the ‘C140’ & 163 inches for the Pullman. Out of the body styles available, the ‘C140’ and the Pullman need to be talked about a bit more as they’re not as well documented in the ‘W140’ world.

Starting with the ‘C140’ first, as already mentioned, this was the Coupé variant of the ‘W140’ and it replaced the older ‘C126’ MK2 S-Class SEC’s. This was a very difficult job as the SEC’s were a favourite during the eighties. Just like the W140, if you had a C216 when new, you were a very important person indeed. Even though pretty much everything was the same as the saloon, the C140 didn’t quite have the same impact from the start and this was due primarily to it’s different front fascia to the saloons which in comparison didn’t suit the car as well as it should’ve done. These days, a ‘C140’ in good condition is quite a rare car here in the UK with only 30 licensed S500’s at the end of last year. Considering there’s 769 S500 saloons currently licensed on the UK roads, there’s not many C140’s left.

Moving onto the Pullman, this variant is very special indeed. The Pullman name has been synonymous with travel since the 1920’s. For those that don’t know about Mercedes-Benz Pullmans, they are an extremely rare, luxurious & stretched version of big Benz Saloons built officially by Mercedes themselves. The Pullman name goes back to the late 1800’s, before the Motor Vehicle had even been Patented by Mercedes-Benz themselves so due to this, it started off with the Railways. An entrepreneur by the name of George Mortimer Pullman patented the ” Pioneer” sleeping car in 1868. Up until this point, rail travel wasn’t great due to overall lack of space meaning people had to huddle in cramped compartments cushioned with straw sacks. Blankets weren’t even available unless a Passenger brought their own. This is where George came in. He detected a gap in the market and created a sleeping car that impressed with it’s spaciousness & comfort.

Even though it was considerably more expensive than a conventional sleeping car, by the time the 1920’s came around over 100,000 people per night were checking in to the Pullman wagons. Due to the popularity of these sleeping cars, the Pullman Palace Car company transferred what they learnt & implemented from the Railways onto the automotive industry, which they also supplied with vehicle bodies. Thus the Pullman name in the Automotive Industry started. Since then a Pullman coach has been heavily regarded as the top class of luxury, comfort & exclusivity.

Pullman vehicles were built with a much longer wheelbase than a majority of standard production vehicles thus allowing the likes of Mercedes-Benz to develop a car with a lot more space by fitting two, and more, rows of seats and four to six doors & windows. Most Pullman developed vehicles were intended to be owned by the wealthy and to be driven by chauffeurs. This element still stands today.

The most famous & well known Pullman model was the 600 series from the Sixties. This was a car that’s whole philosophy was to be the largest & most expensive Mercedes-Benz ever produced and boy did they succeed. The standard Grosser was already a large Saloon but the Pullman took the cake. A car known to be owned by high ranking officials at the time, The 600 in general was a true masterpiece of Mercedes-Benz craftmanship. With this in mind, they decided to use the exact same philosophy onto the W140 Pullman.

Even from the start of production, the W140 was a car that had no care for a budget. Mercedes-Benz wanted it to be the best of the best and they went out to prove that. As mentioned, it took 10 years of R&D just to create the legend that is the W140 in it’s entirety but with the Pullman that went a step further. Just like the 600 Pullman that came before it, this was a stretched version of the normal LWB W140 with 4 doors & six seats. it had luxuries such as a glass partition between the front & rear passengers, it had curtains, walnut trim, a stereo for the rear passengers, leather seats that were all electrically operated amongst much else. The Pullman was also available with or without armoured plating which is vital considering the people that owned these cars when new.

On the subject of owners, the W140 had a high calibre of owners. these included both mine & many other people’s top F1 Driver – Michael Schumacher, Madonna, Penelope Cruz, Jack Nicholson & Chris Tarrant to name a few. During the 90’s, the W140 was the US rappers choice of car and these included Tupac ‘2Pac’ Shakur, Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson and many more. The W140, just like the 600 Grosser was also a fan favourite of being owned by dictators and numerous Gangs/Mafia’s. These included the Yakuza, the Russian Mafia, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-Un’s predecessors & the Albanian Mafia.

The Yakuza especially absolutely loved the W140. If you were ever in Japan during the Nineties and you saw a W140 coming towards you, you were automatically obliged to move out the way. This also translated to Europe as well where the W140 was also used to ferry numerous celebrities & royalty around. In fact, in a sad twist of fate, a ‘S280’ W140 was the car that Princess Diana unfortunately died in back in 1997. After the fateful crash where 3 people in total, Diana included had died, Mercedes-Benz took the car back to their headquarters to see what actually caused the crash and what was concluded was that the car did everything it was meant to do and it wasn’t at fault. There’s still some speculation today on what actually happened on that fateful night. some people have said that if she wasn’t in a S280 and was in something like a more powerful ‘S500’ instead, the driver may have been able to outrun the paparazzi that were following. Others state that if everyone in the car were wearing their seatbelts then they’d have possibly been able to survive the crash.

Regardless of what happened though, the W140 both when new and even now nearly 30 years on has become something of an Icon in the car world. It’s road presence cannot be matched and with a plethora of engines available, the MK3 S-Class has cemented itself in the Automotive industry as being not just the last of the well-built Mercedes-Benz’ but also as a king of the road. With Engines like the ‘M119’ V8 & the ‘M120’ V12 (the first ever Mercedes V12) that also became legends in their own right, it was no surprise that it was and still is a huge success & when you put it all together, it only makes sense to buy one so that’s exactly what I’ve done!

Hope You Enjoy!

By Alex Jebson