I agree......MB was building cars and letting the prices fall where ever instead of building a car to hit a certain price point.....that worked for a while....but here comes Lexus and people looked closely at the price/ value equation.....I think the 140 was a better built car in terms of quality materials....as I think most people would agree....but not enough to have justified the huge difference in price(25-30K).....and the fact that the Lexus was so much more realiable than the 140...
In terms of the post 1995 price decrease,I know from a good friends parents who purchased a new S500 back in '98....they were discounting heavilly from the sticker price of the S-Class....sticker on their car was 90K and they purchased it for 78K
Not sure what the actual transaction costs were for the early cars(92-94)....hopefully not sticker!!!!

Warren
1992 300SD 126K
Columbus Ohio