what is wrong with this w124 front end?
 

I have this 1994 E420 in my shop right now, and the hood is just not right. it seems to line up fine on the top and the sides, but the front looks wrong. Not sure if it is the wrong hood or the wrong headlights.

Looks like a 92-93 with a 94-95 hood. What is the build date?

Either that or someone installed the early style headlights and turn signals on it. Going by the placement of the headlamp wiper and squiter I think the under headlight trims are correct for the 94 / 95 model.

-J

I think the headlights are wrong. They should be the one-piece halogens after the facelift.

Yup, wrong lights.
The 94-95 had a curve in the lens on the top inside corner to match the hood.

Jim

Agree with the above posters. I have a 93 and a 95 myself. Those are the 90-93 or older headlamps. The 94-5 are once piece lenses that should close right up on the hood. The hood is definitely correct for a 94, as the 93 grill laps over the the front and the MB star emblem is attached actually to the grill in the 93. For the 94-5 the grill is as you have shown, mounted inset into the hood and the emblem hood ornament is mounted to the actual hood sheet metal. The other odd thing is where are the wipers - another clue someone has changed out those headlamps. I have both a 93 and 95 that do NOT have the headlamp wipers and there is not hole for them. Someone has swapped out the original lamps and I bet the wipers didn't work with the older lamps so those are gone too now (from what I can see in the pics). Seems like an odd swap unless there was a wreck and someone had some parts lying around.

I see another problem now that I looked again. That is not a 94-5 bumper either. It is from a 90-93 model. The center strip on that bumper shown is black. If the OEM for a 94-5, that is the same color as the rest of the bumper. In the 93 and before, it was uniformly a black insert which is what I see in the picture. Again, would seem someone has hit something and gathered parts from a 93 or older and rebuilt the front end with the original hood.

I have a 90 bumper on my 95 wagon. The wife hit a damn trailer fender on the freeway on ours and killed the original bumper so I had a 90 parts car and it was a direct bolt on R&R. Just now has the same as yours, a black strip rather than body color as it should have for OEM.

Either it's a 1990 to 1993 W124 with an E-look hood, or a true 94-95 with pre-facelift headlights and bumper.