Oh for crying out loud...just go to your local dealer, drive there in your W124 and test drive a W203. By safety and transmission alone it is in another cosmos. Not only is it a different car its a different car company. Its almost like comparing Honda to VW thats how much things have changed at mercedes.

Only thing I really despise about the new cars is the CEL light. I think a lot of money has been made by dealers on the basis of this little orange light (Hopefully that will change when/if the government forces manufactures to publish their codes.) I also don't like the blandness of the car but hey thats subjective.

One thing I have found out is that everybody loves their current mercedes (they'll argue and fight you to understand their love) and you will too regardless of which one you pick, thats one thing they haven't stopped engineering into them

Reading this thread I am beginning to understand the premise of that new set of commercials