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Diesel. All-wheel drive. A station wagon. Mercedes-Benz built that combination on the W124 platform, and this Euro-market 1994 E300 Turbodiesel 4MATIC wagon, listed by Norwegian dealer Autonero, is live on Bring a Trailer right now. It sits at $15,000 after seven bids, with the auction closing Sunday, October 18, at about 1:06 p.m. ET.
The spec is the story. Mercedes-Benz's own classic archive counts 2,317 examples of the turbodiesel 4MATIC wagon, a tally it carries through March 1995, which makes it a tiny slice of the W124 range. Even in a wagon revival where Gen X is falling hard for 1990s wagons, a diesel 4MATIC is the one you almost never see for sale.
Under the hood is the 3.0-liter OM603 turbocharged inline-six diesel, rated at 147 horsepower and 201 lb-ft of torque. That matches Mercedes' archive figures for the later version of the engine (147 hp and 273 Nm). Power goes through a four-speed automatic and the 4MATIC system to all four wheels, an arrangement Mercedes first showed at the 1985 Frankfurt auto show. It is nobody's idea of fast. It is a very specific idea of a winter car.
This one was sold new in Germany and imported to Norway in 2004. It shows 126,000 kilometers (about 78,000 miles), roughly 1,000 of them added by the current owner, who bought it in 2024. It's finished in Brilliant Silver Metallic over black patterned cloth, with a sliding steel sunroof, 16-inch eight-hole alloy wheels, heated power front seats, dual-zone climate control and the factory hydropneumatic self-leveling rear suspension that W124 wagon fans consider part of the point.
The seller notes a scratch on the left rear. The cylinder head was resurfaced in 2016, when the injectors were serviced and the glow plugs and drive belts were replaced. Commenters also flagged a high coolant-temperature reading in one of the photos. The seller replied that the photos were taken after an hour-long drive and a lot of idling, then said the shop found a defective fan clutch and that a new one was on order, to be installed at the seller's expense.
Buyers should plan around the geography. The wagon is registered in Norway and sold on that registration, and BaT's listing leaves shipping and any taxes or duties to the winning bidder.
It's the sort of car Bring a Trailer does well. The site has served up a Mercedes 500E with Porsche power, a 345-hp Volvo wagon with 1,800 miles and plenty of other oddball Euro estates. Few of them can claim a spec this unlikely. Anyone who has ever wanted a long-roof Mercedes with a diesel, an all-wheel-drive system and a self-leveling rear axle has until Sunday afternoon.
Source: Bring a Trailer. Lead photo: Autonero via Bring a Trailer.
