Asal Muasal ... (nama Tiger/macan) By Alex a

W123 - The "Mercy Tiger" . If you read the "Cars for Sale" Classifieds in an Indonesian newspaper, when you see some "Mercy Tiger" for sale, don't be alarmed that the Indonesians use the merciful tiger for their transportation needs, but rather it`s a local translation for the faithful Mercedes-Benz W123-series. The reason it was affectionately called that name is that because when that series was popular in Indonesia, people started calling this car as a "Manis" = sweet (looking), "Cantik" = pretty. And because the Indonesian are known for their love to abbreviate anything the two terms were merged to "Macan". And because "Macan" is an informal (Javanese?) word for "Tiger", hence the name. "Mercy" is just the way Mercedes-Benz name is both abbreviated and called over there. In another name twisting, when the W123`s replacement arrived, the successor W124 was called inappropriately as "Baby Benz", even though the "Baby Benz" was supposed to be the name for W201 (190 series). I am not sure about the reason, but I guess it was because 190 E series was never officially imported or assembled in Indonesia. At the time, the W124-series was the only Mercedes-Benz sedan that was imported to Indonesia as a CKD car: The car was completey knocked down and then all the parts re-assembled to a complete car, to satisfy the local content requirement at the time, and thus probably avoiding the extremely high import taxes for ready-to-use cars. I heard that the W124 replacement, the current E-Class W210 was marketed as "New eyes" Benz or in local speak, called "Mata kucing" = cat eyes. I can't confirm if this is true, I just heard it from a friend. So, there you have it, animal`s designations from tiger to cat are used to name the E-Series Mercedes-Benz in Indonesia in the past twenty years or so. End of article written by Alex A. In Germany the W123 has no particular name, but as the non-280`s had four round headlamps (see the photo of the sedan on top of the page) these pre-modelyear 1983 car`s headlights are called "Ochsenaugen", or "ox eyes" in English; the modelyear 1983 and newer non-280`s headlights are called "Breitbandscheinwerfer", that`s "broadband headlamps"