Yahoo Autos Mercedes-Benz celebrates 40 years of the first Baby Benz
Mercedes-Benz's lineup changed significantly in late 1982. By launching a new entry-level model called W201 internally and Baby Benz colloquially, the Stuttgart-based company made its cars accessible to a much wider audience and considerably increased its annual sales.
Although the first W201 saw the light that awaits at the end of a production line in December 1982, the idea of expanding the Mercedes range towards the bottom had ricocheted through the firm's research and development department for many decades. In 1948, Mercedes developed a 145-inch long two-door sedan with a Ponton-like design. It didn't reach production. Mercedes tried again in the 1950s: its board gave an entry-level model the green light in 1953, and several prototypes were built, but the project reached a dead end. It took several more tries (and pressure from regulators to improve the range's average fuel economy rating) before the W201 became a reality.
In the early 1980s, the boxy W201 looked completely out of place parked next to a W126 and a W123 in a Mercedes showroom. And yet, in hindsight it blazed the path that later additions to the firm's portfolio followed. The W124 released in late 1984 (and later turned into the first-generation E-Class) looked like a jumbo-sized W201, and this angular design language permeated the R129-generation SL as well as the W140 that ended its career as the first S-Class. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; you could easily argue there's absolutely nothing sexy about a W201 but you could just as easily argue it's characterized by an elegant design that's relatively simple, pure, and functional.
From the driver's perspective, the W201 felt like the scaled-down Mercedes sedan that it was. The seats were developed with a focus on comfort, the instrument cluster was clearly legible, and most of the controls were grouped on the center stack. With that said, going from, say, a W123 to a W201 required picking up a new habit: the emergency brake was a lever located on the center console rather than a pedal.
