"SE" Designation
 

Could someone tell me exactly what the "SE" designation represents? For example how would a 300SE differ from a 33E?
Tks in advance,
Chris

What is confusing is that the same letter can mean different things in different Mercedes models.

For instance the SE in your example is the short wheelbase fuel injected chassis, whereas an SEL is longer wheelbase model, but SL is for the super/sport light chassis.

It's meant different things over the years - and doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot today. They're just names for cars - S class, E class, C class. E was originally tacked on for fuel injection - einspritzun - or something like that. In other words a 280S was carburated while a 280SE was fuel injected. And then with an extended wheel base it became a 280SEL, for long. It's kind of a hodgepodge of stuff over the years.

Even the 300 is misleading. The 92-93 300SE has a 3.2 liter engine.

The only thing you can be sure of is D :)

Sixto
95 S420
87 300SDL

The German word is Einspritzung. Some made sense, but only from a German model perspective. For an example the 124 gas wagons are TE. In Germany there were T's but without the E.

In 1994 Mercedes started their attempt to clear up the confusion, thus for an example an E320 (E body, 3.2 litre engine). But, now I just saw a 2005 C240, so that should be a C body with a 2.4 litre engine ..... but no, it is a 2.6 litre engine! Hmmm. Or a C230 Kompressor that has a 1.8 litre engine....

But the new E class and S class seem to follow the regular logic once again regarding engine litres ....

Haasman

S always ment Superlative , the best MB.

John

The W124 followed the designation quite well.

In Germany and MOST world markets there were 124s without the "E" because they were carburatted models: such as the 200. After the 124 facelift, all models were fitted with fuel injection, hence all designations had an E after the three digit (engine displacement ID) number.

Wagons had a "T" for touring/tourism, coupes sported a "C" and diesel models had a "D".

The S class sedans sported S, SE, SEL, SD and SDL lettering and SL basically means S-Class Light. The coupes obviously were SEC.

Newer models have a K for Kompressor, CDI for Direct Injection Diesel, and all the new ID lettering for class sorting, such as ML, G, C, E, S...

SL is not derived from "S-Class Light" at least not at its inception.

I've noticed some models with the E designation that are actually diesel.

Actually, way back in the late 50's to early 70's the S meant super. SE meant Super Einspritz (sp?). Cars like the 220S had carbs and the 220SE fuel injection. Then came the 230S, 250S, 280S, all with carbs. There were also 220SE, 250SE and 280SE as well as 300SEL, 280SEL which were the long chassis versions of the regular cars.

The designations change with body style too, such as the 50's 300S and 300SC for example, and the 220b which has dual single downdraft carbs.

Kinda confusing.

Then there were the V-8's, with 3.5, 4.5, 6.3 and 6.9 tacked on the end.

But never a D when it means gasser.

Yes. Prefix E is E-class. There are E-class Diesels.

Sixto
95 S420
87 300SDL

Yes, you are right. I made a slight mistake. Checked on my books and original German catalog of the SL from the 1970's and according to official M.B. literature on the SL:

"S" stands for "Sport"
"L" stands for "Leicht" (Light)

Model Designations
 

Nitske, in his book, states that S & L can mean different things in different models...S in SL means Sport and L means Light.....In the S series the S stood for Super and the L stood for Lang(long wheel base)...Sixto gave me the book....Jim

A D is not always a d
 

A "D" does not always stand for diesel. Some cars in the 50's and 60's used the "d" designation to indicate that they were of a like class but a slightly different body style in the evolution of that model. For instance a 190D in a car made in the 80's or 90's means that it's a diesel. But a 1950's 190d means that there have been 3 different versions of that model. :confused:

If you REALLY want to get confused try finding out what the i stands for in a 750iL BMW! :eek:

i guess the i in 750iL stands for fuel injection
We have 750iAL here when A stand for automatic tranny

SE mean s-class with fuel injection
For the E-class they have diesel like 250D and 300D
and in the early model like W123/124/201, when the first model come, they dont have any letter behind the number, you can find W123 230 W124 200/W201 190

When an I isn't an I
 

Well, maybe except that the German word for fuel injection is einspritzung. The e that they used in the 80's (ex. 325e) stood for ETA, a type of engine that they used that had low revs and was supposed to use less fuel.

I even asked the zone rep for BMW at the time and he didn't know.

The L on the 740iL is for Long. USA only gets Long versions of the S class and 7 series and A8 series as well. Later this year or next year we in the USA are supposedly getting the Short Wheel Based S class as well. In the S350 form. Not sure if BMW and Audi will do the same. Personally I love the styling of the S class but it is too big for my tastes. Right now it is not an issue since I have no need for anything larger than a C class. But in the future who knows.

What if you wanted a long wheelbase version of the carburettored 280S? You might end up ordering an 280SL, and get completely the wrong car (a 2-door 2-seat sports car..)! I guess they just never made long wheelbase non-injection models..

Russ

<< The only thing you can be sure of is D >>

Not always. The D in the 300D of the 1950's was for Diplomatic. It was a gasoline model.

Off topic but the 740I never came to the US? I saw a very sharp black 740I about a week ago, it looked like a short 740IL.

The W189 is a 300d where the lower case d implies the fourth revision of the original 300, which is actually a W186. The badge on a W186 or W189 reads only 300. There is no d or D suffix. There may have been diplomatic versions of these cars but I'll bet my neighbor's cats that they don't have a D as part of the badge either.

If anything, the 1954 300SL was the first production MB with fuel injection so it should have been a 300SLE :eek: The first MB to bear an E for fuel injection is the 1958 220SE.

Sixto
95 S420
87 300SDL

It was not at first but hell it may be now. I have only ever seen the IL. Maybe why MB decided to bring over the shorty S!

Actually, there was no confusion at all with this topic at the time: All long wheel-base W126 models ("L") had fuel injected engines. The original line up for the W126 at the time of introduction (late 1980) in Germany was:

280 S
280 SE
280 SEL
380 SE
380 SEL
500 SE
500 SEL

Later, the W126 models grew up into:

260 SE
300 SE
300 SEL
420 SE
420 SEL
500 SE
500 SEL
560 SE
560 SEL
and
300 SD
300 SDL
350 SDL

Note: Not all models were sold at all markets.

There's also a 350SD. And the W126 series includes the SECs.

Sixto
95 S420
87 300SDL

The 740I had a nice set of wheels and looked like a late body style, Right before the new 745's. (ugh) It also had a Yale sticker in the rear windsheild, I think that says it all. I go to school pretty close to Yale and get buzzed by M3's, LS400/430's ect all of the time with the proper Yale sticker on them. :rolleyes:

740i
 

In Canada, we have had 740i and 740iL models for as long as I can remember. The i is just a shorter version of exactly the same car. This continued until the new ugly model came out.

The new style is called the 745i and 745Li.

One of my friends has a 745i (new style) and another has a 740i (old style). They're quite common around here.

We also have the new S-class in a short wheelbase, which isn't available in the States. If I recall correctly, all S500 models are long wheelbase but the S430 is available in short or long configurations.

Neal