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Welcome back ladies and gentlemen; I hope you all had a fantastic weekend. To kick things off this morning, DaimlerChrysler has taken a moment to publish a touching look back at the C-Class and its humble beginnings some 25 years ago. While I could try to give you a quick overview of the lovable model's illustrious history, the comprehensive, nine-part press release does a far better job than I could ever hope to do, so I think it's best if I let the press kit take it from here.
To learn more, keep scrolling to view all nine pages of the Mercedes-Benz C-Class History press release in their full, unadulterated glory.
Enjoy.
1. A new star in the automotive firmament
2. Technical highlights of the C-Class
3. C-Class model history in brief
4. What came before the Mercedes-Benz compact class
5. The Baby Benz
6. The first C-Class
7. Four-eye face for the C-Class
8. From road to racetrack
9. C-Class statistics
A new star in the automotive firmament: Debut of the Mercedes-Benz 190 in 1982
The Mercedes-Benz C-Class is a truly multi-talented range of cars, available as compact sedan, thoroughbred sports coupe and successful racing car. The class also includes versatile station wagons for leisure, family and professional use, doubles as an innovative technology carrier and became a top-seller for the company. These are just a few of the facets of this highly successful model series, as displayed across the many individual cars in the range. The Mercedes-Benz “compact class” is an entire family of models, offering an enormous range of qualities and features.
The history of the C-Class began in 1982 with the introduction of the 190 model (W 201 series). This was the direct forerunner of the C-Class. The 190 marked the advent of a third model series, alongside the S-Class and E-Class. If the SL-Class and G-Class are counted as classes in their own right, the W 201 series was actually the fifth Mercedes-Benz passenger car series. In fact, the appearance of the new model in 1982 marked the beginning of an extensive diversification program, since the new-look technology carrier was actually the first shot in a sustained product campaign.
North American customers were soon calling the new sedan the “Baby Benz,” but the car also packed a real punch. Revolutionary new features set high standards in passive safety, propulsion, and other areas of automotive technology. The brochure for the 190 put out in 1982 promised the customer “leading-edge Mercedes technology in a compact format.” The model delivered on that promise, as the C-Class does to this day.
As well as drawing on innovations from the E-Class and S-Class, the W 201, W 202 and W 203 series themselves consistently introduced new features which were then incorporated in other Mercedes cars. The new C-Class (W 204 series) launched in 2007 is the fourth generation of the “compact class” since the appearance of the new star in the Mercedes-Benz firmament in 1982.
