Mercedes Wallpaper |
Current model range
Mercedes-Benz carries a full range of passenger, light commercial and heavy commercial equipment. Vehicles are manufactured in multiple countries worldwide. The Smart marque of city cars and Maybach luxury cars are also produced by Daimler AG.
Passenger cars
The following passenger vehicles were in production in 2011:
Mercedes CLS |
- A-Class—Hatchback
- B-Class—Multi-Activity
- C-Class—Saloon, Estate & Coupé
- CL-Class—Coupé
- CLS-Class—Coupé
- E-Class—Saloon, Estate, Coupé & Cabriolet
- G-Class—Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV)
- GL-Class—Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV)
- GLK-Class - Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV)
- M-Class—Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV)
- R-Class—Luxury Tourer Vehicle (LTV)
- S-Class—Saloon
- SL-Class—Roadster
- SLK-Class—Roadster
- SLS AMG—Coupé
- SLS AMG—Roadster
- Viano—Multi Purpose Vehicle (MPV)
Trucks
Mercedes-Benz Trucks is now part of the Daimler Trucks division, and includes companies that were part of the DaimlerChrysler merger. Gottlieb Daimler sold the world's first truck in 1886.
Buses and vans
Mercedes-Benz Vario
Mercedes-Benz also produces buses, mainly for Europe and Asia. Mercedes-Benz produces a range of vans. The first factory to be built outside Germany after WWII was in Argentina. It originally built trucks, many of which were modified independently to buses, popularly named Colectivo. Today, it builds buses, trucks and the Sprinter van.
Significant models produced
Mercedes Vito |
- 1928: SSK racing car
- 1930: 770 "Großer Mercedes" state and ceremonial car
- 1934: 500 K
- 1936: 260 D World's first diesel production car
- 1936: 170
- 1938: W195 Speed Record-breaker
- 1951: Mercedes-Benz 300, knownly as "Adenauer Mercedes"
- 1953: "Ponton" models
- 1954: 300SL "Gullwing"
- 1959: "Fintail" models
- 1960: 220SE Cabriolet
- 1963: 600 "Grand Mercedes"
- 1963: 230SL "Pagoda"
- 1965: Mercedes-Benz S-Class
- 1966: 300SEL 6.3
- 1968: W114 "new generation" compact cars
- 1969: C111 experimental vehicle
- 1972: Mercedes-Benz W107 350SL
- 1974: 450SEL 6.9
- 1974: 240D
- 1975: Mercedes-Benz W123 Wagon - Mercedes' first station wagon
- 1976: 300D
- 1978: 300SD - Mercedes' first turbo diesel
- 1979: 500SEL and G-Class
- 1983: 190E 2.3–16
- 1991: 600SEL
- 1993: First 'E-Class'
- 1995: First 'Joint Mercedes-Benz & AMG' (C43 AMG)
- 1995: Mercedes-Benz SL73 AMG, 7.3 V12 (biggest engine ever put in a Mercedes-Benz)
- 1996: Mercedes-Benz Renntech E7.4RS
- 1997: Mercedes-Benz SLK
- 1997: Mercedes-Benz M-Class
- 2004: Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren
- 2004: Mercedes-Benz CLS
- 2007: E320, GL320 Bluetec, ML320 Bluetec, R320 Bluetec
- 2010: Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG
Car nomenclature
Until 1994, Mercedes-Benz used an alphanumeric system for categorising their vehicles, consisting of a number sequence approximately equal to the engine's displacement in liters multiplied by 100, followed by an arrangement of alphabetical suffixes indicating body style and engine type.
- "C" indicates a coupe or cabriolet body style.
- "D" means the vehicle is equipped with a diesel engine.
- "E" (for "Einspritzen") means the vehicle's engine is equipped with petrol fuel injection. In most cases (the 600 limousine being the exception), if neither "E" or "D" is present, the vehicle has a petrol engine with a carburettor.
- "G" denotes the Geländewagen off-road vehicle.
- "K" was used in the 1930s, indicating a supercharger ("Kompressor") equipped engine. One exception is the SSK, where K indicates "Kurz" (short-wheelbase).
- "L" means "Leicht" (lightweight) for sporting models, and "Lang" (long-wheelbase) for sedan models.
- "R" stands for "Rennen" (racing), used for racing cars (for example, the 300SLR).
- "S" Sonderklasse "Special class" for flagship models.
- "T" stands for "Touring" and indicates an estate (or station wagon) body style.
Some models in the 1950s also had lower-case letters (b, c, and d) to indicate specific trim levels.
Mercedes SLS |
For the 1994 model year, Mercedes-Benz revised the naming system. Models were divided into "classes" denoted by an arrangement of up to three letters (see "Current model range" above), followed by a three-digit (or two-digit for AMG models, with the number approximately equal to the displacement in liters multiplied by 10) number related to the engine size, as before. Variants of the same model (such as an estate version, or a vehicle with a diesel engine) are no longer given a separate letter. In most cases, the class designation is arbitrary. The SLR and SLS supercars do not carry a numerical designation.
As before, some models' numerical designations do not match the engine's actual displacement; in these cases the number shows the model's relative performance within the class. For example, the E250 CGI has greater performance than the E200 CGI because of different engine tuning, even though both have 1.8-litre engines. Recent AMG models use the "63" designation (in honor of the 1960s 6.3-litre M100 engine) despite being equipped with either a 6.2-litre (M156) or 5.5-litre (M157) engine.