"Special Edition"?
 

Does anyone have a list of things that are different in the 1995 E420 "special edition" from stock?
Thanks!

Anyone?

Never seen a special ed. before. I think it might have been a dealer package. Time to time dealers with throw some after market goodies on a car and add a status to the model. I've seen a E class before, being sold as Platinum Model....silver E, with wheels and leather stiched saying platinum.... so i don't know if you're really getting any more of a car....

Was somewhat a DISTRIBUTOR package....They added left-over accessories on cars that MB Germany added their left-over accessories.......

MB started that with the W201 chassis!!

On 1995 W124 chassis they used:

Special paint, door sill plates, wheels, CD players, & phones...

To expand a bit on MB Doc a 420 had certain metallic paint colors, six hole wheels, brushed aluminum door sills, CD player and telephone. The 320 had burlwood rather than zebrano wood but the 420 had burlwood standard anyway. The whole thing was offered at a big discount off list as a way to push the last of the 124s out the door. There's a lot of confusion about special edition because Carfax for some reason has decided that all 1995s were special editions, which isn't true. So everyone that does a Carfax on their 95 thinks they have a special edition.

check out threads from "bob i" on this. he has one and is very knowledgable on this. He has written many times about it.

So for the E420 the special edition package only included the phone?

It also got the self-leveling rear suspension, like the one that the 500E's got.

I believe it also had stainless steel sill plates.

They also got every single option, I believe, including heated seats and the rear sunshade, which many "regular" E420's didn't get.

Are you serious?
Isn't the self leveling suspension troublesome? Does it do anything for the car's handling? How does it affect the ride? Is it more comfortable?

Not true - didn't get the self-leveling suspension, didn't include heated seats, didn't include rear sun-shade.

Self-leveling system in the '94 and '95 cars was pretty good actually (I think) no problem in mine with 265,000 miles outside of a ruptured hose from the tandem pump. Quite a mess too.

Strange. I have a friend, who has posted under the name "Hi-Power" here, who has a '95 E420 Special Edition, and his came with heated seats, power rear sun screen and self-leveling rear suspension.

I was under the impression that regular E420's in any year couldn't even have been ordered with the self leveling rear suspension.

Self leveling potentially means more repairs over the years but I can assure you that working correctly it is superb. Our 300TE has it (was standard on 124 wagons) and apart from the convenience of correct ride height regardless of load, it offers great ride comfort with perfect damping. Interesting to note that the performnce versions of the W201, the 190E 2.3-16 and 2.5-16 had it as standard and that the evolution versions also ran it on the front suspension.

Back to the topic of "special editions", this seems to be a local thing within a particular market. Here in Oz, the last of our W124 sedans were E220 special editions. Typically the 220E and E220 were fairly basic but those special editions came with leather, walnut, alloys and power everything. Special editions were not badged as such, it was simply a marketing term. Likewise, the last of our W201s were budget versions (all options deleted) of the 190E 1.8 which were uniquely badged "180E" here. Strangely, these too were often called special edition.

Yeah, I think given the choice, I would prefer to own a W124 with self leveling rear suspension.

I've seen magazines where they have "Masterpiece" w124s

it is badged as such, the word "masterpiece" is in script, i believe they have a 2 tone interior...

don't think it was released in the continental US though