After spending 20 silent years sealed inside a garage, a rare Mercedes-Benz 500 E has finally seen daylight again. The car, often celebrated as one of the most perfectly engineered sedans ever made, has been brought back to life through a meticulous detailing effort that uncovered both its wear and its enduring brilliance.
Once hidden under a thick layer of dust, the 500 E is now a rediscovered artifact of early 1990s automotive excellence. Built between 1990 and 1995, the 500 E was a collaboration between Mercedes-Benz and Porsche, with production limited to just over 10,000 examples worldwide. Around 1,500 made it to the United States. Each car was hand-assembled by Porsche in Zuffenhausen over an 18-day process, before being sent back to Mercedes for finishing — a rare partnership that fused performance engineering with luxury refinement.
The car’s design, penned by legendary stylist Bruno Sacco, gave it a stance that balanced subtlety and aggression. Beneath the hood, a naturally aspirated 5.0-liter V8 produced 322 horsepower and 354 pound-feet of torque, sending power to the rear wheels through a four-speed automatic. In its era, it could sprint from 0 to 60 mph in about 5.5 seconds, matching the performance of sports cars like the BMW M5.
The recently revived example, detailed by the team at WD Detailing, emerged as a time capsule of Mercedes’ golden age. The black leather interior, Zebrano wood trim, and precision switches tell the story of a brand at its engineering peak. Decades of neglect left scars—faded paint, mismatched resprays, and cracked upholstery—but underneath, the car’s mechanical soul remains intact.
Now clean and gleaming once more, the 500 E stands as proof that true craftsmanship doesn’t fade with time—it merely waits to be rediscovered.
