1981 Mercedes-Benz 300TD Turbo Diesel Is a Quantum Leap

From the March 1981 issue of Car and Driver.A big chunk of this magazine is devoted to the month’s burning issue—quality—and there you can read all about Japan’s latest methodology in the small-car market. If you want good gas mileage with fine fit and finish at a reasonable price these days, you buy Japanese. That’s common knowledge. But it should also be noted that Japan didn’t invent quality, nor is that country the exclusive source of well-made automobiles.A search for the origins of automotive quality would quite likely carry you back to the 1889 workbench of one Gottlieb Daim­ler, a German universally credited (along with Karl Benz) with inventing the automo­bile. There you’d find a motto in a simple frame, “Das Beste oder Nichts” (The Best or Nothing), a slogan that served both Daimler through his productive lifetime and the firm that followed, Daimler-Benz, during the past nine decades of manufacturing. That same slogan also sums up the exis­tence of the newest of all Mercedes—the re­cently unveiled 300TD with turbo-diesel power. For years, Mercedes chose the “noth­ing” alternative from the motto whenever corporate thinking drifted into the realm of station wagons. But since the first T (for transport and touring) model rolled off a Bremen, West Germany, assembly line three years ago, Mercedes has eclipsed convention with the aim of building the very best station wagon in the world. The 300TD’s quality is all-encompassing. Its bodywork is rock-solid; its trim looks and feels as if it will last forever. The social stig­ma of driving around a substantial-looking suburban cruiser is neatly avoided with a 26-mpg EPA rating. Apply a conscientious toe to the accelerator pedal, and you’re talking 500 miles between fill-ups. The turbocharger boosts both torque and horsepower by over 40 percent, so the 300TD now pulls a taller gear (3.08: 1 final drive instead of 3.45:1) more quickly, more quietly, and far more ef­ficiently than last year’s wagon, all at once. A good share of the credit must go to Mer­cedes’ new-for-1981 W4A 040 automatic transmission, introduced with the S-class se­dans. This is a four-speed, wide-ratio device that always uses all four gears to accelerate the car from rest to cruising speeds. The new powertrain makes the 300TD one of your quicker Mercedes. The wagon is lighter than the 300SD sedan that shares this engine, has more torque than any other M-B powerplant except the V-8, and enjoys surprisingly slip­pery aerodynamics to boot. In comparison with the sluggish 300TD we tested a year ago, the turbo’s performance improvements are remarkable. Over six seconds have been lopped from zero-to-sixty time, almost three from the quarter-mile. The 300TD now cranks up 9 more mph by the end of a quar­ter-mile and an additional 12 mph flat out (enough to vault the 100-mph hurdle). It’s another one of those quantum leaps of tech­nology—the kind that Mercedes built its rep­utation with, and a form of quality the Japa­nese have yet to exploit. More Mercedes Diesel Wagon ContentThe 300TD’s braking is well balanced (70 to 0 mph in 214 feet), and its handling is closer to neutral than any other Mercedes money can buy in America. So for every Greenwich housewife lusting after the Benz­-wagon for Thursday bridge, you’re bound to find a harried junior executive fighting for the keys so he can beat the train to work. When the 300TD isn’t trekking along sub­urban social trails or racing off to a board meeting, it makes a terrific transporter. Four could stay cozy cross-country with nary a complaint. With some back-seat compromis­es, five can be accommodated. The cargo hold is carefully finished in carpeting and soft trim, so it makes a terrific playpen for Fido. One particularly handy feature is a containment net that reels upward out of a transverse tube to provide a barrier above the rear seat that blocks every­thing but rear vision. There’s also a tough sheet of color-keyed vinyl that comes out of the same tube like a horizontal window shade to keep valuables hidden from unscrupulous eyes. Since the spare wheel stows vertically, the floor panel is actually a huge trap door, which when opened reveals a long and wide (but very shallow) secret compartment. (The perfect place to hide the family’s sterling piz­za trays!) In five-passenger trim, the 300TD has 41 cubic feet for cargo. If the hauling gets more serious than that, the whole rear half of the wagon can be converted from passengers to cargo in modular fashion. The rear seatback is split 40-60, and each section lies flat once the corresponding lower cushion is flipped up. Sacrificing all three back-seat positions provides room for 74 cubic feet of freight. And to carry really long items, you remove the right rear seat cushion and tilt the right front seat’s backrest to a horizontal position, creating a cargo bed that’s narrow, but just slightly less than ten feet in length. The rated load is 1050 pounds (passenger and cargo total), all of which can be transported on an even keel thanks to an automatic leveling sys­tem built into the rear suspension. It looks and sounds handier than a Swiss Army knife. To find out for sure—and to acid-test the theory that this is in fact the best station wagon extant—this very 300TD has been added to David E. Davis, Jr.’s, personal transport stable. He (and we) will run its odometer up, exercise every possible cargo­-people configuration, dutifully log our comments along the way, and maybe make a modification or two (in the Gottlieb Daimler-­Karl Benz spirit of perpetual research). Qual­ity like this deserves a long-term examina­tion, don’t you think? SpecificationsSpecifications
1981 Mercedes-Benz 300TD Turbo Diesel
Vehicle Type: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 5-door wagon
PRICE

Base/As Tested: $31,373/$32,455
ENGINE
turbocharged diesel inline-5, iron block and aluminum head, port fuel injection
Displacement: 183 in3, 3000 cm3
Power: 120 hp @ 4350 rpm
TRANSMISSION
4-speed automatic 
DIMENSIONS

Wheelbase: 110.0 in
Length: 190.9 in
Curb Weight: 3850 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS

60 mph: 13.2 sec
1/4-Mile: 19.0 sec @ 72 mph
Top Speed: 102 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 214 ft 
C/D FUEL ECONOMY

Observed: 23 mpg
EPA FUEL ECONOMY
City: 26 mpg 
C/D TESTING EXPLAINED
Source: caranddriver.com