W126 Review by Doug DeMuro

[c107]

Some of you might be familar with Doug DeMuro, who does a weekly review of an interesting car on youtube. He can be quite a polarizing figure, but I generally find his reviews quite interesting.

He recently did a W126, and while he gets a few things wrong, its quite a good take on the W126, and those of you who are not familiar with some of the differences in the USA models can see them clearly in this video.

He also ranked the S-Classes in his opinion from the W116-W222. His rankings were as follows:

W140
W221
W126
W222
W116
W220

I disagree with him putting the W140 at the top, I would put it close to the bottom myself. I find it over complex, and in my view its on of those mercedes models that are the awkward transition between one design language and another. The same can be said for the W114/5, W210 and a few others.

My list would be (excluding the 221 and 222 as I have no experience with those).

W126
W116
W220
W140

From a styling point of view, I would put the W221 in at 3rd behind the W116 and the W222 behind it.

 

[260ebenz]

Thanks for posting the W126 review Bryce.

In fact I was watching the same video you posted only a few hours ago.

Can’t say I agree with everything Doug has to say in regards to the W126.

That 560 Doug is driving sure does look magnificent!

As you can probably guess I have a soft spot for the W126 and the vast range offered in the S-Class.

 

[c107]

Thanks for posting the W126 review Bryce.

In fact I was watching the same video you posted only a few hours ago.

Can’t say I agree with everything Doug has to say in regards to the W126.

That 560 Doug is driving sure does look magnificent!

As you can probably guess I have a soft spot for the W126 and the vast range offered in the S-Class.

I think Doug is right in that the 2nd gear start and generally unresponsive transmissions let these cars down. I've seen some companies offer a control box to mount a later 722.6 5 speed transmission instead of the 722.3. Could be an interesting swap.

If I could change one thing about old Mercedes it would probably be the transmissions. In most of them they basically operate as a 3 speed as the 1st gear is almost never used and when you do it's so short, its jerky and not a great experience.