My folks had a 280 SEL. Fabulous car. Loved the interior smell of real leather. Car was faster than hell, too.
One day when it was getting serviced, my dad received a phone call from the mechanic; he had "interesting news" about the M-B.
It seemed "somehow" assembly went askew in the fatherland, and M-B mistakenly crammed a 6.3 liter V8 in our car as opposed to the 4.5. No wonder it was so fast, got terrible mileage, and was sold ten years after we bought it for 150% profit.
I still miss that car twenty years later.
Anyway, if all the 300 D and TDs running around here is any indication, M-B will do really well with this program. The old M-Bs were some of the best cars ever built, IMO.