Bruno Sacco’s Greatest Mercedes Designs Are Still Shockingly Affordable

The automotive world has lost a legend. Famed Mercedes-Benz chief designer Bruno Sacco has died at the age of 90. Under his direction, Mercedes-Benz sustained an incredible legacy through a difficult period of change in the automotive industry, navigating the malaise era with serious poise and grace while creating undeniably desirable vehicles.

Granted, this piece isn’t strictly a eulogy. Our resident rogue designer The Bishop did a superb job of covering exactly what made these Sacco-era Benzes so timeless and so desirable, and I urge you to check it out. However, around the virtual office water cooler, a question lingered: How else can we honor the legacy of a man responsible for some truly iconic designs? Well, how about by considering taking one home?

Part of the joy of these elegant, refined, tasteful cars is that they were mass-produced, meaning values often aren’t crazy. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at some of Sacco’s masterpieces, and see what it would cost for you to put one in your own garage.

W126 S-Class

Well, let’s start with the executive sedan for the 1980s, the W126 S-Class. It’s superbly built, it’s incredibly handsome, it looks great either stock or lowered on some period-correct wheels. More importantly, it melded form with function perfectly. Aerodynamic measures like one-piece molded bumper covers and careful front-end contouring contributed to a modern yet elegant form that was right for newly fuel-sensitive times, and helped the W126 become the most successful S-Class ever.

Gone are the days when you could pick up a decent W126 for well less than $5,000, but that doesn’t mean they’re all hideously expensive. Let’s start with the cream of the four-door crop, the 560SEL. This black-on-black example sold on Cars & Bids earlier this year for a reasonable $8,765. No, there’s no digit missing there. With 124,000 miles on the clock and a bunch of big servicing items done, this is one fabulous cruiser for sensible coin.

Alright, let’s say you’re looking for a driver-spec example. Something that’s not perfect, but still gorgeous in its own way. Well, check out this 1991 300SE that recently sold for a mere $5,100 on Bring A Trailer. Sure, it might have a couple hits on its Carfax and 218,000 miles on the clock, but there are much worse things to spend that sort of money on than a nice-looking classic S-Class.

W124 E-Class

What if you’re looking for something more versatile than an S-Class? Something that, in addition to sedan and pillarless coupe forms, was also available as a wagon or a cabriolet? Well, the W124 E-Class is simply brilliant, and it ought to suit that role nicely. Every tired cliche about bank-vault build quality exists for this car, but it’s so much more than just solidity. With a drag coefficient of as low as 0.28 for the European-market 200 and 200D models on skinny little 185-section tires, the result was a masterpiece that cut through the air while still looking dignified, embodying Sacco’s principles of horizontal homogeneity and vertical affinity, effectively meaning shared styling DNA with bigger and smaller models, along with evolutionary design that won’t immediately date its predecessors.

How about a slightly unusual one? This 1986 300E is a bit special because it’s a five-speed manual car, and the majority of these were automatics. It sold on Bring A Trailer for $8,350 in September, and it seems proper. We’re talking about a Southwest car in an exceedingly rare spec, and although it does have one hit on its Carfax and 237,000 miles on the clock, these things are rare enough with a stick that values should stay fairly stable.

Let’s say you’re explicitly looking for a wagon. How does $4,325 sound? Seriously, that’s what this 1991 Mercedes-Benz 300TE hammered for on Cars & Bids, and as a driver-spec example, it seems pretty great. Sure, it might have 184,100 miles on the clock and a little bit of rust due to living in New England, but as an older daily driver with character and practicality, this is an intriguing proposition for those who can wrench.

W201 Mercedes-Benz 190E

This is one of Sacco’s personal favorites. After all, taking a great luxury brand and creating a smaller, entry-level model can have its pitfalls. Do it right, and it’ll both look and feel proper. Do it wrong, and you end up with a Cadillac Cimarron. Well, under the guidance of Sacco, Mercedes-Benz got this thing right. Sure, the 190E was substantially smaller than an E-Class, but it also had the look, feel, and price of a proper Mercedes-Benz. It also ushered in some serious technical innovations like the five-link independent coil-sprung rear suspension setup, a style of suspension still used to this day. The W201 was a landmark car, and as Sacco himself told Automobile Magazine when asked about his best works at Mercedes, “my favorite is the Mercedes-Benz 190 [W201] because of its importance to Mercedes.”

Let’s start with the most coveted variant of 190E sold in America, the E30 BMW M3-fighting 2.3-16. Cosworth 16-valve heads, a dogleg five-speed manual gearbox, bucket seats, a body kit, and plenty of other tweaks helped make this homologation special a legend, and although they’re now firmly collectable, you can pick up a nice-looking one for new Toyota Corolla money. Take this 112,600-mile example which sold on Cars & Bids for $22,888. You certainly won’t find a clean E30 M3 for that money, and although the BMW gets major kudos, the 190E 2.3-16 handles better in stock form. Shocking, right?

Alright, let’s climb back down from the top of the market and focus on the regular 190E. Would you believe that this 1986 example with 92,400 miles on the clock sold on Cars & Bids for just $3,900? Sure, it’s definitely not cosmetically perfect, what with a cracked dashboard, a missing fender molding, and other smaller flaws, but it’s a genuine Southwest car, which makes it the perfect rust-free starting block for some classic Mercedes fun.

R129 Mercedes-Benz SL

Another Sacco favorite, and my personal favorite, is the R129 Mercedes-Benz SL, because it’s just such a high water mark. Work on the R129 Mercedes SL actually started in the late 1970s, and with a market launch in 1989, that gave Sacco years to provide oversight before a design freeze was implemented. The result is one of the best-looking Mercedes-Benzes of all time. It has just the perfect amount of wedge in its silhouette to imply rakishness without compromising elegance. Just the right amount of muscularity to appear healthy without seeming brash. It was still, in the grand scheme of things, small. Oh, and like every other Mercedes of the era, the sheer solidity of the thing is awe-inspiring.

I’ve already done a full-on Gavel Gazing just on the R129 SL, so let’s see how the market’s been since then. This particular R129, a 1993 500SL, was actually owned by a good friend of mine a few years ago, and it’s a peach that hammered on Cars & Bids for the second time a few months ago. Hammer price? A totally reasonable $12,100, especially considering the rare AMG Aero III wheels and the low 89,900 miles on the clock.

This 1997 SL500 40th Anniversary Edition recently hammered on Bring A Trailer for a mere $7,100. Sure, it might have 125,000 miles on the clock, but it’s got a clean Carfax, that red is mighty fetching, and it looks both complete and well taken care of. As far as mature grand touring roadsters that can still cut a rug go, you aren’t getting better for your money than this.

W220 S-Class

I can already hear the keyboards clicking away over this. Just hear me out. While purists have written that the W140 S-Class of the 1990s was the last great S-Class, there’s just that funny little feeling that might not be the case. Partly because that car had its own problems, and partly because it looks a bit clumsy. I’ve never quite been a fan of the finished product, and as it turns out, neither was Sacco. When Automobile asked him if there were any designs of his that he was dissatisfied with, he answered that the W140 was “four inches too tall.”

However, the W140 wasn’t Sacco’s last S-Class. That would be the W220, a car often maligned as the beginning of the end for Mercedes-Benz. Certainly, it had some quality control issues at launch and marked the shift to building cars for a given cost rather than figuring out pricing later, but here’s the thing — attrition can be a wonderful thing. By now, the newest W220 is 18 years old, meaning the truly crap ones have almost all met their maker. Right now, a good W220 is a sleek, sumptuous, restrained, yet decadent example of an executive sedan for the new millennium. In short, a lovely car.

Let’s start with arguably the most desirable non-AMG model, the 2003-onward S600. It featured a twin-turbocharged 5.5-liter V12 producing such an abundance of buttery horsepower and torque, it feels like God’s hand is pushing you back into your seat until you dare to let off. No drama, just speed. As a car like this ought to be. Well, here’s a 46,000-mile example that recently sold on Bring A Trailer for $17,500. That’s sensible coin for an extraordinarily low mileage example of a seriously fast luxury sedan. Not bad.

Mind you, those twin-turbocharged V12 cars can be quite complex, so what about something simpler, like a Southwest-owned S500 with the AMG appearance package? Well, this one just sold on Cars & Bids for a tidy $6,200, and it seems like a winner. After all, it only had 60,200 miles on the clock when it hammered. Score.

So, if you’ve ever wanted a Bruno Sacco-era Mercedes-Benz, there’s no time like the present to make your dreams a reality. What was once the pinnacle of mass-produced luxury cars is now a wide variety of wonderful affordable classics. Danke, Bruno.

(Photo credits: Bring A Trailer, Cars & Bids)

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