Normally, early 1990s Mercedes-Benz products don’t tickle our fancy here…unless it’s a Geländewagen or a Unimog, at which point Brian might start to trickle a little bit of drool out of the corner of his mouth. They’re early Nineties yuppie-mobiles, cars that were supposed to look good as you drove by people with…ahem…”lesser taste” in cars than you. Mercedes-Benz products weren’t meant to appeal to gearheads as much as they were to appeal to people who wanted something pretty to park outside of their McMansion. Unless it has the letters “AMG” on the back, we aren’t really paying attention.
But when we laid eyes on this 1991 station wagon, we might have had a bit of a moment. Was it confusion? Was it interest? Whatever it was, looking at this 300TE wagon makes us think of what an upmarket version of a Subaru Outback could and should be. While we are snickering at the thoughts of M-B advertising this particular model (known internally as “Mallcrawler”), we have to admit that whoever did this wagon up did it pretty well. It’s been lifted three inches, fitted with all-terrain tires all the way around, has lockers front and rear, and has LED lightbars just to make sure you can see where you are going to camp for the night. While you feasibly could take this thing up some of the rocks at Moab (if a beater Crown Vic can walk up the side of one of those walls, surely this wagon could), we see it as a healthy alternative to the crossover.
I had no idea you could get that particular Mercedes in all wheel drive. Putting a lift on one and mud tires is very amusing.
If it was any good as intended in the build he would not be offering a trade for a jeep… Those 4matics were not the best when new.. so I say it is good for a trip to the mall, and getting attention… useless as a 4×4!