AUTONEWS

The day Porsche used a Mercedes model as a guinea pig 

It could have ended in marriage, but it never went beyond a secret relationship. How a Mercedes C124 almost helped design a Porsche V8 sedan.

This Mercedes-Benz C124 — the E-Class Coupé — may seem like “just” another example of the star brand’s elegant coupé, but it hides a peculiar story. The most trained eyes have already spotted the differences, namely the Porsche wheels and the XXL proportions of the body.

It was a test mule for a model that never saw the light of day, the Porsche 989. A front-engined four-door sedan that was supposed to be launched sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s. A sort of Panamera that never happened.

It never happened, but its story deserves a few minutes of our attention. It's not every day that you see a Porsche V8 engine in the body of a Mercedes-Benz.

At the time, Porsche wanted to develop a model that was radically different from its legendary Porsche 911. The main reason? The brand's sales were cooling off — in the 1990s the situation almost led Porsche to bankruptcy — and new models were needed.

The brand invested heavily in transaxles — 924, 944 and 968 — but sales never met expectations. The technology was above suspicion, despite our title: Well, we had to reverse course. The aim was to launch a new model with a front engine and a more conventional configuration, but Porsche lacked its own platform to carry out secret tests.

What was missing was a platform to test...To solve this dilemma, Porsche discreetly turned to the Mercedes-Benz C124, choosing it because of its platform and longitudinal front-engine configuration, ideal for testing new technologies away from public attention.

Under the hood is a 3.6-liter turbocharged V8 engine sourced from Porsche. The mechanical configuration maintained the transaxle — the manual gearbox was installed on the rear axle —, as in the brand's front-engine coupes, and allowed for improved weight distribution and dynamic behavior.

On the outside, the most obvious clues to this secret hybrid are the iconic seven-spoke wheels of the Porsche 944, equipped with 225/55 ZR16 tires, which gave it a peculiar look, although discreet enough to allow Porsche to carry out tests away from prying eyes.

A few years later, Porsche would even end up making a four-door sedan with a V8 engine. But it wasn't a Porsche, it was also a Mercedes.

Started in 1989, the project was finally stopped in January 1992. Porsche CEO Arno Bohn and development manager Ulrich Bez were forced to leave and Wendelin Wiedeking came to the helm. He stopped the project as unprofitable and focused on launching the new Boxster roadster (986) and new water-cooled Porsche 911 (996), which shared many Boxster components. 

In 1995, the 928 went out of production and the only Porsche V8 engine remained in the Mercedes 500E. After 8 years, in 2003, Porsche has launched a new V8 engine in the Cayenne SUV. The modern successor of the stopped 989, the Panamera, was launched in 2009, also with V8.

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