Two thoughts:
1) the 126 is a great car, but so are the smaller bodies (123, 124), and they'll still feel like Mercedes.

2) Age is incredibly helpful for auto insurance, and you may not be getting ripped off too badly at the moment (sorry to say). Our daughter is an 18-year-old accident-free honor student at Notre Dame and is still costing $2400/year for a '99 Jetta, including a couple of discounts we get for having all our cars and our homeowners with the company; once she hits 19 it drops dramatically, but not to adult rates until she's somewhere in her 20's.
Rates also vary significantly by state and local area; I'd pay substantially more if we were down near Detroit.

__________________
Craig Bethune

'97 SL500, 40th anniversary edition

'04 Olds Bravada (SWMBO's)
'06 Lexus ES330
'89 560SL (sold)


SL--Anything else is just a Mercedes.
(Kudos to whoever said it first)