This is a good question. I must admit for once I do not have an answer to give to you. I will research this and get back with you. I know the US production numbers must be aval. to us however to find out how many world wide may prove to be a bit of a challange. Ill work on just the 560 for now but I remember it being a lot more than you would think for a car costing some 60-80 thousand back in the 80's and 90's.
Thanks for the details. Do you know how many of them were 420's and how many were 560's?
Having a hard time finding out how many were produced for sale in the USA but with close to a million made in Germany must put the US numbers under 200,000-300,000 US W126 units.
75,071 560 SEL models. Very slightly more than the 420 SEL, but was not the most popular model. That honor would go to the 280SE, followed by the 300SE, 300SD, then 560SEL. Total Coupe production was only 74,060 , of which 28,929 were 560SEC's (my car). Total 126 production was something near double that of any other S class.
Their citation: All figures for saloon and coupé according to: Oswald, Werner (2001). Deutsche Autos 1945-1990, vol.4. Stuttgart: Motorbuch Verlag. pp. 112113. ISBN 3-613-02131-5. and Kittler, Eberhard (2001). Deutsche Autos seit 1990, vol.6. Stuttgart: Motorbuch Verlag. p. 190. ISBN 3-613-02052-1.
Amazing how many of them have been made. For some reason I remember the number being much higher, however I may have been viewing the total W126 count.
With close to 1 million W126 chassis produced for the world, they had a good ten year run!
Anyway, thanks again for your input.
-- Edited by SELLC at 02:44, 2009-01-25
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