Mercedes E-Class Cabrio Celebrates Its 25th Birthday

Hard as it may be to imagine now, with its extensive lineup, a quarter century ago Mercedes didn’t offer any four-seat convertibles – just the solitary two-seat SL-Class roadster – and hadn’t in some 20 years.

But the German automaker rectified that with the launch of the original E-Class Cabriolet, which now celebrates its 25th anniversary.

Though it wouldn’t adopt the E-Class name for another two years, Mercedes launched the 124-series cabrio at the 1991 Frankfurt Motor Show, ending a two-decade gap that had seen the previous 280 SE Cabriolet end production in 1971.

The 124-series E-Class Cabriolet remained in production until 1997, by which point Mercedes had built 33,952 examples: 15,380 with four-cylinder engines and 18,572 with six – including the rare E36 AMG convertible, of which only 68 examples were made, before Daimler took controlling interest in the Affalterbach-based performance workshop in 1999.

Mercedes replaced the E-Class Cabriolet with the CLK in ’97, which lasted for two generations before the model line was reabsorbed into the E-Class family in 2009 with the current model. By now the E-Class is available in four bodystyles and the Mercedes convertible lineup is bolstered by drop-top versions of the C-Class and S-Class, as well as the SLC and SL roadsters.

Don’t be surprised to see more follow as the German automaker seems bent on offering the largest array of convertibles in the industry.