The five cylinders have two strikes against them in my book. Strike one is the blasted things are a PITA to work on vs. the four cylinder.

Strike two, all the five cylinder models have automatic everything, windows, sunroof, ACC, etc. These are just expensive gadgets to give trouble. I learned many years ago how to open my own sunroof, wind down my own windows and in spite of what some people think I really do have enough sense to turn up the temp when I'm cold and turn it down when I'm hot.

I don't think that MB tried to build the 124 cheaper than the 123. In fact I believe the opposite is true. The 124 is a much more expensively built car due to its complexity. My 240D cost less than $20,000 new, while only four years later my 124 cost almost $50,000 new.

To me this is not a case of building it cheaper, it is a violation of the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid.)

My $0.02,