This is a W140 Mercedes-Benz S 280, seen in a central Beijing office area in February 2013. The big Mercedes looked absolutely perfect! It was very rare to see a W140 in this condition in China – especially in the winter. The owner clearly took very good care of his S 280.
Tourmaline Green Metallic
The beautiful, deep-green color is called Tourmaline Green Metallic. About 99.9% of W140 S-class sedans in China are black; a few are brown or gray, but this was the first one I’d ever seen in green. It looks very classy – distinctive – almost like a Jaguar!
I am a big fan of these classic Mercedes-Benz six-hole 16-inch wheels, a common factory wheel design on late 1990s W140s. They have a nice period-accurate look, and the modest design suits the green exterior color very well.
Mercedes-Benz produced the W140 S-class from 1991 to 1999, with a facelift in 1994. The car in the photos is a post-facelift example. Mercedes-Benz officially sold the W140 in China. But at that time, there wasn’t a modern dealer network like we know today. Instead, Mercedes-Benz owned an import & sales company in Beijing, and independent repair shops took care of deliveries and maintenance.
Specifications of the Mercedes-Benz S 280 model
The chrome strips are cleaned to the maximum! Note the ultrasonic parking radars in the bumper, which replaced the ultra-cool pop-out rear-parking markers on earlier models.
The Mercedes-Benz S 280 model has an “M 104” 3.2-liter inline six-cylinder under the hood, with 228 hp and 310 Nm. Mercedes-Benz couples this indestructible motor to a five-speed automatic gearbox. The top speed was 225 km/h, and it did 0-100 in 8.9 seconds.
Licence plate frame
This Mercedes-Benz S 280 is perfect already – but it is even more brilliant thanks to these shiny license plate frames. These fit-on frames were super popular in the early and mid-2000s. Tycho had ‘m on his car too! The frame of the S 280 is really pretty, with just the Mercedes logo and the company name.
Car owners could get the frames at car dealers and markets. For a short while, the Beijing government banned the frames because they blocked the view of traffic cameras. But the ban proved too hard to enforce and was eventually revoked.
Until the mid 2010s, the W140 S-class was still a regular sight on the roads of Beijing. However, strict emissions regulations have gradually pushed these great German sedans out of the capital and into provinces where the rules aren’t so strict yet. Hopefully, this Tourmaline Green Metallic S 280 is still around, somewhere safe.