In 1974, Mercedes-Benz began work on its first compact car since the 1930s. Nine years and £600m later, the 190E arrived as a rival to the hugely popular BMW 3 Series.
What better way to test a model that Mercedes itself admitted was “massively over-engineered”, we reasoned, than to drive it across Europe, from baking Greece to freezing north-eastern Norway?
We were guided out of Athens at midnight by Mercedes Hellas’s PR chief and onto the motorway north, where we were impressed immediately by our 190E’s ride.
Poor surfaces continued to be no trouble as we wound our way through the hilly countryside of Yugoslavia, averaging 55mph.
The least pleasant part of our journey was overtaking lorries on the motorway to Zagreb, the fourspeed auto’s sluggish kickdown making us wish for the manual.
Entering mountainous Austria, “the Merc loved its bit of exercise, responding by putting its power down decisively on damp roads”.
Cruise control worked well on German autobahn, keeping us at 110mph on non-gradient sections. Having taken a speedy ferry to Helsingborg (the Øresund Bridge was still but a dream), we sped up to Stockholm, making such good progress we had time for another 500 miles to North Cape island.
Seventy-one hours and 3455 miles in trouble-free comfort.
Smith aims to revitalise GM
Have you ever heard of the malaise era? Triggered by the 1970 Clean Air Act and solidified by the 1973 oil crisis, it was a time when Detroit cars became generally undesirable and started losing out badly to Japanese imports.
Things started to look up as the 1980s arrived; General Motors felt tentatively positive, having gone back into the black under new boss Roger Smith. “I’m convinced this is turning around,” he told us after allying with Toyota and beginning a sweeping corporate transformation – which ultimately proved disastrous.
First mid-engined American
Against all the odds, when General Motors was trying to revive its line-up amid shrinking sales and cash flow, Pontiac got approval for the Fiero: America’s first two-seat roadster since 1955, its first plastic-bodied car and its first mid-engined car.
Mind you, it was still meant to be a commuter, so it got just 92bhp from a four-pot engine but also up to 50mpg officially.
Performance was lacking, but we were impressed by its handling and comfy ride. Taking 370,000 sales by 1988, it succeeded in enlivening the Pontiac brand.
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The 190E was a lovely car; it may not have been the roomiest but it was one of the nicest, most well-proportioned designs ever, second only to the Pagoda Roof SL before it. Apparently its build quality was legendary for all the right reasons. These two were the pinnacles of Mercedes design and engineering, never to be repeated. With one or two exceptions, the styling has been steadily down hill ever since and the engineering is compromised by too many electronics.