Our favourite Mercedes classics

Even if you’re not familiar with the classic Mercedes slogan – the best or nothing – you’ll know that the name has become synonymous with style, luxury and reliability. The S-Class series has long been a long-running Rolls Royce rival, while the SL dynasty of roadsters has been responsible for some of the most elegant soft-top cars in automotive history.

It was a difficult choice to make, but here are eight of our favourite Mercs from down the decades. Mostly dating from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s – arguably Mercedes' styling heyday – these cars are all absolute icons. If you are lucky enough to have any of these sitting in your garage, we hope that they are covered by some specialist car insurance.

600 'Grosse' (W100) (1964-81)

The 600 'Grosse' ('Grand') was an ambitious project right from the start. Rather than develop its predecessor, the handsome W189 luxury saloon, Mercedes started from scratch with a new platform, body, engine and interior. They had big plans for the 600 'Grosse' – and those plans bore pretty ripe fruit, as the car stood up as a genuine rival to the likes of Bentley, Rolls Royce and Cadillac.

The 'Grosse' has a long and illustrious list of owners. Celebrities from Elvis Presley and John Lennon to Coco Chanel and David Bowie liked to be driven around in one. Janis Joplin's seminal song Mercedes Benz written after a ride in fellow musician Bobby Womack's 600.

They were also the favoured transport for a host of world leaders, from Idi Amin to Deng Xiaoping, and from Robert Mugabe via Saddam Hussein to the Pope. The car was a notable cut above even Merc's contemporary S-Class equivalent, the W112.

It came in various forms: the short-wheelbase variant was designed to be owner-driven, while long-wheelbase, limousine and Pullman models, often with a central divider, allowed the great and powerful to be ferried around by chauffeurs.

When the 600 was unveiled in 1964, it was undoubtedly the most technologically advanced car on the planet. Weighing 2.5 tonnes (or more, if you went for the Pullman seven-seater), it came with air suspension, vacuum central locking, two heating and ventilation systems.

Reflecting the kinds of clients that the 600 was aimed at, bulletproof glass was an option. All that weight and tech needed a potent engine, of course, and the 600 saw the debut of Mercedes' brand new 6.3-litre V8, complete with Bosch fuel injection.

S-Class (W108 / 109) (1965-72)

This was the first S-Class by name – and what a fine, elegant and cosseting car it was. The W108 (short) and W109 (long wheelbase) were styled by two master designers: Paul Bracq – who also designed the extraordinary BMW Turbo concept car, as well as the very first 3 Series – and Friedrich Geiger, who would go on to dream up the 300SL Gullwing.

The very first S-Class was a 2.5-litre 250, which offered a relatively modest 130bhp. By 1968, though, the entry model was upgraded to a 2.8-litre engine, with a corresponding rise in power and speed. That year also saw the introduction of the 300SEL 6.3, perhaps the first properly powerful, big Mercedes saloon.

For this luxury monster, the V8 engine was taken from the 600 'Grosse' (see above) and put into the long-wheelbase 300. That gave a top speed of more than 140mph, and a 0-60mph time of around six seconds. Pretty astonishing for a supersize, 1960s saloon car. Incidentally, that 6.3-litre variant was the first in a long line of iconic big, potent Mercs, succeeded by the 1970s' 450SEL 6.9 and the 560SEL during the '80s.

That did leave, however, a bit of a gap between the rather sensible 2.5 / 2.8-litre cars, and the monstrously quick and thirsty 6.3-litre – so, in 1969, Mercedes-Benz unveiled a new 3.5-litre V8 engine and put it under the S-Class.

Result: the 300SEL 3.5 (or, for the short-wheelbase car, 280SE 3.5). This was a great compromise, blessed as it was with the V8's air suspension and delicious engine note, but without the massive price tag and fuel bills.

S-Class coupé / cabriolet (W111) (1965-75)

OK, we're cheating a little, as this was simply the coupé form of the W108/W109 S-Class we mentioned above. But it's a very different, and a very fine-looking car.

In fact, the W111 coupé / cabriolet is a heavy revision of the previous generation of luxury Merc coupés, the legendary 'Fintails' which we will discuss a little further down. To that already very attractive package, the W111 added rear disc brakes, plus a radio, sunroof, and acres of wood and leather.

In 1969, the new 3.5-litre V8 found its way under the elegant coupé and cabriolet bodywork, creating the most desirable variation of the breed. You ended up paying 25% more for this V8 than for the standard straight-six engines, but the V8's power and smoothness made that extra outlay worth every penny (or pfennig).

Today, these cars are much sought after – especially the cabriolet, decent examples of which will never fail to clock up six-figure sums. The cabriolet mechanism must be added to the list of features that need regular maintenance, making classic vehicle insurance even more essential.

W114 / W115 (1967-76)

We love that stacked-headlight look that Mercedes went for from the late 1960s through to the late 1970s. And the W115 (four-cylinder) and W114 (six-cylinder) saloons were great examples of this.

Like their W108 / W109 / S-Class big brothers, the W114 and W115 cars featured some technical innovations, such as a Bosch fully electronic fuel injection system (for the 250CE, the first production Mercedes-Benz to use the system). These cars also got, for the first time in a Merc saloon, a centre console.

Also, like other large Merc saloons, there was a coupé variant, which functioned more as a grand tourer as distinct from the saloon's executive designation. This car, in fact, would have been your way into Mercedes coupé ownership, being cheaper than the SL – think of it as the equivalent of today's E-Class coupé.

The W114 / W115 coupé wasn't, unlike the SL, a proper convertible, but the pillarless design did allow motorists to fully lower all the windows, to get that open-air-motoring buzz.

The coupé form was much rarer than the saloon, being produced in only 67,048 examples (as against 1,852,008 saloons). These days they will be rare, highly covetable, and expensive – and will need the protection of some specialist classic car cover.

W123 (1975-85)

Still not yet called an E-Class (that designation would only arrive late in the lifetime of the next generation, the W124 exec saloon of 1984 to 1997), the W123 was a legendary Merc exec saloon.

This was the car that won Mercedes-Benz new markets worldwide, thanks to its brilliant build quality, attractive but sensible styling and huge range of engines. The W123 is also notable as the first Merc to offer an estate variant – the latter making its debut halfway through the saloon car's run, in 1980.

Like its predecessors, and perhaps even more so, the W123 won an admiring following because it was seen to be a very well-built and reliable car. It was a popular choice for taxi companies, especially in its native Germany. In late 1970s Britain, ownership of a W123 Mercedes was proof positive of your membership of the upper echelons of society.

Once again, a coupé version looked very handsome and, being a more specialist car, sold in far smaller numbers – almost 100,000 during its eight-year production run.

300SL Gullwing (W198) (1954-63)

Even without those extraordinary, roof-hinged doors, the legendary 300SL Gullwing would make anyone's list of the most beautiful cars ever made. It stands up well alongside other elegant cars from the 1950s, surely the most beautiful decade for car design.

The BMW 507, the Ferrari 250GT Berlinetta, any of the Maserati A6 dynasty: wonderful cars all, and the 300SL sits very proudly among them. It's just a gorgeous-looking thing.

The 300SL made its debut at 1954's Motor Sport Show in New York – but racing enthusiasts would already have been broadly familiar with the car's looks. You see, two years previously Mercedes had entered another 300SL (whose internal codename was W194) for the 1952 Sportscar racing season.

With a 3-litre, straight-six engine under its long, swooping bonnet, that car enjoyed a very successful year, winning races including the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Mexico's Carrera Panamericana. Managing to combine potent performance with silky looks, the W194 was a revelation. No wonder, then, that Mercedes based their soon-to-be-iconic mid-50s grand tourer on it.

As well as sheer beauty (those slashed wheel arches! Those rounded quarter panels between the boot and rear wheels), the Gullwing was also awesomely powerful and blissful to drive – and deserves the title of the first supercar, even though that term was still a few years off in the future. Its 3-litre M198 six-cylinder engine helped it to become the fastest production car of its time. It's now considered probably the most beautiful car Mercedes have ever made, and we're not going to argue.

W110 / W111 / W112 'Fintail' (1959-68)

The generation of executive saloons produced by Mercedes from 1959 to 1968 got themselves the nickname Heckflosse, or 'Fintail', thanks to their tailfin-styled rear ends. Remember that, through the 1950s and 1960s, tailfins were all the rage on American cars like the Ford Thunderbird.

It's interesting to look at how and why these fins dominated the more adventurous car designs of the era. The 1950s was the decade when the jet engine really took flight, with air travel becoming an affordable reality for many people. What's more, the age of space exploration was just over the horizon. Car manufacturers were clearly inspired by this new age of exploration.

Mercedes' own take on this trend, seen in their 1960s saloons, was understated. Indeed, the tailfins were marketed not as styling features but as parking aids, helping the driver to locate the ends of the car when backing into a space. Rarely have form and function been so successfully married.

W113 'Pagoda Top' (1963-71)

So, how do you set about designing a successor to a car as revered as the 300SL Gullwing? Mercedes knew they had a job on their hands when it came to dreaming up the car that would replace that motoring icon. As it turns out, they made a very decent fist of it.

The second in the SL dynasty of luxury two-seat roadsters, the W113 of 1963-1971 is stunning in its simplicity. The two-seat convertible shape tends to be naturally graceful, but rarely has it looked more perfectly conceived than in this beautiful roadster. And that holds true whether the car is in roof-down form, or with the hard-top up – the roof is slightly concave, accounting for the W113's 'Pagoda Top' nickname.

The car's chief designers, incidentally, were Paul Bracq and one Béla Barényi, a Hungarian designer / inventor whose impact on automotive design cannot be overstated. For one thing, Barényi invented many crash protection features, such as crumple zones.

The W113 also featured various distinctive and vital Barényi safety features. Its thick side pillars, for example, protected the roof in the event of the car rolling over. It was also the first sports car to benefit from a dedicated ‘safety body’ – a rigid central passenger area, flanked by designated crumple zones with their own impact-absorbing front and rear sections. Its interior was rounded, with all hard corners and edges removed, making for a roadster that was both beautiful and safe.

Protect your classic Mercedes through Lancaster

It was tough narrowing down Mercedes' long list of elegant automobiles to just eight. Which is your favourite?

If you are the proud owner of any classic Mercedes, you should protect it with specialist classic car insurance.

Policies through Lancaster can include benefits like limited mileage discounts and Laid Up cover.

Contact us today to arrange some classic car insurance for your beloved vehicle.

Policy benefits, features and discounts offered may very between insurance schemes or cover selected and are subject to underwriting criteria. Information contained within this article is accurate at the time of publishing but may be subject to change.