i believe the "S" originally meant "saloon".

in "SL" form, it meant "Sportlich/Sportive" or in some cases, "Special"

In all cases, they are all "Spensive".

I believe the changes over time in nomenclature reflect the changes in influence between marketing and engineering within the company. Previously, it was engineering for engineering's sake, no matter what the market wanted, and the names obviously referred to technical designations that appealed to the technical-minded set. Nowadays, they are marketed in "classes", which evoke different lifestyles, or levels thereof. Hence the letters come before the numbers and some of them are given new meanings.

This could also be a response to the built-in class designations of the BMW nomenclature (3-series, 5-series, 7-series), each of which has distinct target markets.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060713214643AAChRBf


Best Answer - Chosen by Asker

E- The E stood for Einspritzung, which is German for fuel injection, which was a very new feature at the time the "E" first appeared in the 1950s
SL;- SL-Class is a series of luxury automobiles. SL, meaning "Sport Light", or in German, Sport Leicht,
C-coupe
E-The E stood for Einspritzung, which is German for fuel injection, which was a very new feature at the time the "E" first appeared in the 1950s
M-Mid-size SUV
Now this is from a site
Another Aside: What do the Model Letters Mean?
Mercedes assigns the letter designation to a model to describe one or more of a car's major characteristics in a general way. Some model letters on older cars from the 1920's and 30's were:
"K" Kurz (German for Short)
"L" Lang (Long)
"V" Vor (Front, engine in front)
"H" Heck (Rear, engine in Rear)
Model letter designations on modern cars usually mean:
"K" Kompressor
"C" Coupe
"S" Sedan
"E" Einspritzer (fuel injection)
"G" Gelaendewagen (off-road vehicle) or Grand
"D" Diesel
"T" Turbo or Tourer
"S" Sport
"L" Leicht (Light weight)

Mercedes now markets cars according to Class designation. Some Classes are "S", "E", "C", and "M". These Class letters do not appear to have any particular meaning. Hope this helps!



Also


http://www.panix.com/~rmadison/mercedes.shtml

Dave

__________________
1970 220D, owned 1980-1990
1980 240D, owned 1990-1992
1982 300TD, owned 1992-1993
1986 300SDL, owned 1993-2004
1999 E300, owned 1999-2003
1982 300TD, 213,880mi, owned since Nov 18, 1991- Aug 4, 2010 SOLD
1988 560SL, 100,000mi, owned since 1995
1965 Mustang Fastback Mileage Unknown(My sons)
1983 240D, 176,000mi (My daughers) owned since 2004
2007 Honda Accord EX-L I4 auto, the new daily driver
1985 300D 264,000mi Son's new daily driver.(sold)
2008 Hyundai Tiberon. Daughters new car

L (the L in SEL) stands for the german word Lang, or long. As this car has a longer wheelbase that add a few inches to the backseat's footroom (and the rear doors)

__________________
-1983 VW Rabbit LS Diesel (5speed, VNT/Giles build)

It adds 5.5 inches of rear leg room.

Dave

__________________
1970 220D, owned 1980-1990
1980 240D, owned 1990-1992
1982 300TD, owned 1992-1993
1986 300SDL, owned 1993-2004
1999 E300, owned 1999-2003
1982 300TD, 213,880mi, owned since Nov 18, 1991- Aug 4, 2010 SOLD
1988 560SL, 100,000mi, owned since 1995
1965 Mustang Fastback Mileage Unknown(My sons)
1983 240D, 176,000mi (My daughers) owned since 2004
2007 Honda Accord EX-L I4 auto, the new daily driver
1985 300D 264,000mi Son's new daily driver.(sold)
2008 Hyundai Tiberon. Daughters new car

.
. . . but I seem to remember some magazine article giving the meaning of "S" in S-class as "sonderklasse." Does anybody know what "sonder" would mean in English?
.

__________________
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-- Paul W. (The Benzadmiral)
('03 Buick Park Avenue, charcoal/cream)
Formerly:
'97 C230, smoke silver/parchment; '86 420SEL, anthracite/light grey; '84 280CE (W123), dark blue/palomino

Sonder=special, makes sense I guess.
I think the K in SLK was for Kompact, or as mentioned 2 posts up=kurz (short), meaning it is a small SL (sports light), which is why if you have a naturally aspirated engine it's still an SLK. If you have the compressor engine it says "Kompressor" on it, the Germans are pretty good at not duplicating their designation efforts. Same thing with the wagons, a 300 TD for example, will still say "turbodiesel" on it if that's what is under the hood, which is where I disagree with the list from dmorrison, the T is for touring (or however the Germans come up with the T equalling what we call a wagon), the D is for diesel in this case, or in the case of a gasser a 300 TE. I don't think they ever use a plain "T" for a turbocharger.
There was a confusing time when MB didn't seem to use a letter to designate a class. The 190 (201) was a classic example where the whole class was summarized by the 190 designation, for example the 190E 2.3, 190E 2.6, 190D 2.5, etc, made absolutely NO sense in todays MB designations, but the DO change their minds on this. I think this is the reverse of what happened to the E class. For a long time the "E" designation seemed to get associated with the middle of the road or "bread and butter" cars, especially here in the US where we want all the "DELuxe" stuff incl fuel injected engines. Although we saw it on other models like the 190 and the S class large cars, MB probably thought the "E" was so identified with the US Mercedes cars that they decided to apply this letter to the middle of the road/bread and butter cars. But in the 80's, you could also make the claim that there was a 300 class car (300E, 300D, oops, 260E which they later changed to 300E 2.6, then later the E300, E300 Diesel, E320, etc) see very confusing to see what they were trying to do. It seems like when even the Diesels were designated with an "E" (E300 Diesel) that MB really knew what they were going to do, and that is to have every chassis identified with a letter and not a number, and have the number change to fit the engine displacement, not like the 300E 2.6 or 2.8 (for example again). The 300E 2.8 was a 104 engine for those that have never heard of it. Hope this might help others understand, I worked on them through a very confusing time period, somewhat clearer now what is what, but I know it is interesting to know where the letters originate, what they mean. Again in the E class, I think it did originate from the original Einspritzer/Injected designation, but was actually carried over to the entire E Class because MB was associated with that letter designation for a long time. Later everyone seemed to forget that and thought up "Executive", but I digress. Does that make the C Class "CEO"?
Gilly

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