(first posted 5/29/2012; updated with additional images in 2015) At Curbside Classic, we spend our days debating the merits (or deficits) of old cars, based on our faulty memories, prejudices and subjective impressions from so many decades ago. So every once in a while, it’s good to get in the time machine, and go back to the source of so many of them: the car magazine tests we absorbed as innocent (gullible?) youngsters, like this one of six luxury cars from the July 1965 Car and Driver. I remember it so well, or thought I did, as it’s obvious we tend to remember those details that reinforce our own prejudices (the Mercedes 600 criticized for cheap switchgear and controls as well as poor ergonomics? The Imperial for poor workmanship?) Ouch.
Originally, I was going to do six separate pieces on these cars, with snippets from the original review. But I decided that it’s a fascinating time capsule by itself, so I’ll just shut up, sprinkle in some CC pictures, and turn the time machine back forty-seven years, when I was twelve and sucked up each and every word of this. Or thought I did.
What inspired this trip down memory lane was this 1965 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, exactly like the one in the test, posted at the Cohort by wooriegi. It was obviously shot in New York City, which is where the original test was done, back when C&D was located there. Is it the same car?
[Click on all images for full-size viewing]
My homage to the 1965 Lincoln Continental is here.
CC’s own coverage of five of these 1965 luxury cars:
1965 Lincoln Continental: The Last Great American Luxury Car by Paul Niedermeyer
1965-1966 Cadillac Sedan DeVille – The King’s Last Stand by Laurence Jones
Jaguar Mark X – Curvaceous Contrarian by Perry Shoar
1965 Imperial Crown Coupe – Incomparable by Perry Shoar
Outtake: Rolls Royce Silver Cloud I by Paul Niedermeyer
This was my second reading of the article, which certainly merits it. After the first go-round I started searching for a ‘65 or ‘66 Cadillac and found one in VG condition, a silver coupe with red leather buckets. No A/C and a “short” garage nixed it. Sigh.
I’ll take the Caddy as I had a ’66 Fleetwood Brougham and had to get rid of it to keep the HOA from suing me. I purchased the Caddy in 1988 for $200 as it was somewhat of a derelict. But what a car with the big real walnut trim, picnic tables and foot rest for the back seat occupants. Beautiful car in triple black. I hate myself for giving it away but perhaps I’ll find another one someday.
There is a saying in the Mercedes M100 group, The 6.9 is a Bachelors degree, a 6.3 is a Masters degree, and the 600 is the Phd. The Maserati Bora used the same hydraulic actuators as the 600, for the pedal box movement, headlights and I don’t know what else. I do remember that my Bora leaked hydraulic fluid from the pedal box actuators so when you were driving fluid would leak on your feet. The Bora is gone!
I find it interesting that the most luxurious American cars built for the 1973 aren’t much different in performance than their 1965 counterparts despite the lower compression smog era engines
Here are the 0-60mph and 1/4 mile times for the 1973 Cadillac Fleetwood, Lincoln Continental Town Car and Chrysler Imperial according to the April 1973 issue or Road Test Magazine
1973 Cadillac Fleetwood
0-60mph: 10.2 sec
1/4 mile: 17.6 @ 80mph
1973 Lincoln Continetal Town Car
0-60mph: 10.4 sec
1/4 mile: 17.6 sec @ 80mph
1973 Chrysler Imperial
0-60mph: 11.8 sec
1/4 mile: 18.1 sec @ 77mph
I find it strange that the 1973 Lincoln and Imperial’s acceleration was faster than the 1965 counterparts.
Smog era cars were affected less by low-speed acceleration (0-60) than high speed acceleration/top speed. 0-60 times vary considerably for any given car,, due to different driving techniques and conditions.
Gearing can affect a 0-60 run considerably. If a car has to upshift before hitting 60, that will slow down the time. As best as I can tell, the 1965 Imperial did upshift into 2nd before 60. Also, the 1973 had the larger 440 engine, the ’65 has a 413. Frankly, the ’65’s time seems a bit low to me.
The ’65 Lincoln had the MEL 430 engine in a modest state of tune, and that engine was pretty out of date by 1965. The ’73 had the much stronger and newer 460 engine. Gearing and other factors may have played into that difference too.
The MEL debuted in 1958, the same year as Chrysler’s “B” engine, and Chrysler released the 413 version just a year later. Point being that the MEL was no older or out of date than Chrysler’s “B” and “RB” engines were. The basic roots of the Cad 429 date back to 1949, and the Jag engine’s roots date back to 1949 as well.
The carburetors in 1965 were the limiting factor. They’re development hadn’t kept pace. None of the Big Three’s big engines could be had with a 4BBL bigger than 600 CFM. That would all change within just 2 years with the release of GM’s 750 CFM Quadrajet, and Carter’s release of their 750 CFM AVS.
” Frankly, the ’65’s time seems a bit low to me.” Frankly, I think a lot of C & D’s test results from the mid-60s are suspect. GTO vs. GTO anybody? They’ve even admitted in later years that they knew at the time that the Pontiac was a ringer with a Bobcat preped 428.
Regardless of the the date of the MEL’s birth, its heads did not breathe as well as the Chrysler B Block’s. Try comparing the competition successes/lifespan of these two engines. The 460 had better breathing heads, and as you said, a larger carb. The same applies to the Cadillac, to a lesser extent.
Plus by 1965 the MEL was a dead engine in the lineup in no other application while the B block was still getting development.
Your points, as well as Cavanaugh’s are well taken, but speaking as someone who has a 56 year history of preferring Mopars over Fords, and speaking as someone who did a ton of drag racing and rear kicking both on and off of the track with a ’68 440 Charger R/T and a ’70 383 Cuda, I’m here to say that the MEL never got it’s due. First of all, despite it’s funky flat combustion chambers (which the Chevy W also had), those ’65 MEL heads do outflow the 413’s heads! In ’65, the 413 was using the 2406516 head which, according to Stan Weiss’ site, flows 201 In. / 151 Ex. CFM @ .400 lift and 216 In. / 151 Ex. @ .500 lift vs. 209 / 153 @ .400 and 234 / 179 @ .500 for the 430! http://users.erols.com/srweiss/tablehdc.htm#Chrysler_Big_Block http://users.erols.com/srweiss/tablehdc.htm#Ford Do you remember that famous photo finish of the 1959 Daytona 500? It took NASCAR three days to figure out who won. The second place car (by a hair) in that race was a full size Thunderbird powered by a 430! And if these C&D test results are to be believed, it’s worth noting that the Lincoln spanked the Imperial at every acceleration point despite carrying more than 200 pounds of extra weight! (Both cars had essentially the same gearing: 2.89 for the Conti., 2.94 for the Imp.) Yes, the B has a more storied competition history, but that was only after Chrysler thoroughly redesigned it’s heads. First there were the vaious Max Wedge heads, and when those didn’t prove to be enough, Chrysler slaped some Hemi heads on the B. (That proved to be enough.) Prior to these efforts, the B was routinely spanked by the Pontiacs, Fords, and Chevys at dragstrips and NASCAR tracks all across the country. Chrysler even had to redesign the B’s heads for truck/industrial use, something that Ford and Chevy didn’t have to do with their FEs, MELs, SDs, and Ws. If you ever study a 361/413 truck/industrial engine you’ll note it’s relocated angled spark plugs and it’s raised exhaust ports. It actually looks like a scaled up Mopar LA head! So if the MEL was so great, why wasn’t it raced more? Well, for one, after Ford dropped it from the Thunderbirds and Mercurys that it had been optional in, and after Ford killed the Edsel, The MEL became a Lincoln only engine. And Lincolns were far too heavy by then to be competive with the smaller lighter competition. Two, NASCAR had imposed a 7 liter limit on displacement and by then Ford had punched the FE out to that size. The FE was over a hundred pounds lighter, which is of course a huge advantage.
Yes, the B engine had a lifespan that was 21 years vs. the MEL’s 11, but that was because Chrysler didn’t have the resources to replace a 10 year old engine like Ford (MEL to 385) and Chevy (W to Mark IV) did. It’s the same reason that ’65 Imperial is wearing that ’57 windshield. You have to remember that at that time, Chrysler only had a 12.5% overall market share compared to Ford’s 25% overall share. Chrysler was quite literally only half the size of Ford. (And it was a situation that was destined to get worse.) The street/civillian version of the B wasn’t really a contender until the #915 and #906 heads came out in ’67/’68 but even then Ma Mopar knew the B’s days were numbered. That’s why they designed and readied for production the “Ball Stud” Hemi. This was a very different engine (still based on the B block though) that was going to completely replace the existing B but of course the accountants that were running (and ruining) the company by then killed the whole project. The B.S. Hemi would have given Mopar a compound valve angle big block that would have been a direct competitor to Ford’s 385 and GM’s Rat, but being closer to being a true Hemi the new Mopar engine would have actually been superior to them.
Lastly, no, in 1965 the MEL wasn’t completely dead yet. The very next year it got expanded to 462 cubes and received even better flowing heads (as seen on Stan’s site).
So please, for history’s sake, let’s be more respectful of the Mighty MEL!
Great article (as confirmed by the huge number of replies!)
The 600’s steering wheel gets criticized, when it’s pretty obviously designed for safety in an accident. MB was a leader in designing safety features into their cars early on. Recall that collapsible steering columns didn’t come into the US market until 1967. Ford also used some heavily padded steering wheel centers starting in about ’66. Kudos for thinking ‘safety’! It sells today, even if it didn’t so much back then!
I once read that MB used oversize steering wheels in case of power steering pump failure. They continued to do so into the 80s. Typical MB over-engineering…
I really enjoyed the test, as well as the spirited discussion!
I’m not sure what the 600 is doing in this company. A better comparison might have been the lwb 300 SE, which could have been afforded by mere mortals. After all, they picked the “standard” Rolls and Caddy (i.e. not the Phantom V or Fleetwood 75), so the W112 would have been more in keeping with the other cars.
Also could have included the Maserati Quattroporte, while they were at it. Maybe instead of the Jag. It would have stood out like the Mk X did here, but might have made for an even more entertaining test.
The W112 300SEL was an extreme rarity. There is even some dispute about it having been sold in the US. I’m not aware of it having been sold here. In any case, its very limited production was essentially wound down when this test was done, and the W109 300SE/SEL would have replaced it later that fall, as a 1966 model. So the 600 was really the only choice at that particular time the test was done.
The 600 was the sedan, not the Pullman, so it does fit in. The Fleetwood 75’s are limousines so do not fit into this test. Before World War II the 75 series had a number of body styles, some of which were owner driven rather than chauffeur driven. Production of the 600 was limited with about 150 produced each year. The Phantom V production totaled just over 500. Not sure about the price tag, but I think much more than the 600’s.
You can really get a good look at how closely Elwood Engel tried to make the Imperial look like his own Continental in that C/D shot of the three dark American sedans on the same page. I’ve long also found it curious that at this time Chrysler had gone all-unibody except for the Imperial luxury cars which were the last body-on-frame holdouts, whereas at Ford it was the exact obvious – the plebeian full-size Fords and Mercurys stuck with body-on-frame while the Lincoln luxoboats were unibody.
The ’65 Imperial reminds me of the ’53-’66 Studebaker sedans, facelifted every year in a desperate attempt to keep them looking up to date. Yet there’s always something that tips you off to it being an old design that’s been tweaked so much you can barely tell it’s the same car, yet it doesn’t quite look truly new because you can recognize the parts that haven’t changed.
This article has certainly raised some strong feelings, speaking as a European with experience of American cars, both driving and restoration, it is clear to me that the huge 50s 60s American luxury cars were not suitable for our small roads and towns, incidentally nor was the vast Cloud and 600 for everyday driving
However, if I lived in the USA, I could not justify the excessive cost of the European cars.
The Cad, Lincoln, Imp almost follows the Pareto principle giving 80% of the car for 20% of the price of the 600. Its where I would put my hard earned money. You can keep your elitist snobbery so that rules out the 600 and Cloud for me
I cannot accept the Mercedes argument that they worked out the perfect position for the steering wheel, humans come in all shapes and sizes, that attitude just annoys me; don’t they come with adjustable wheels now ?
The Mercedes looks like a chromed clumsy block to me, the American cars, in the right colours still have glamour
All would be a disappointment in comparison with modern cars, best never to meet your idols; but as a classic to own today, just for the sheer fun of it, based on complexity and cost I would only consider the 3 American cars, though its the 62 Lincoln I covet
Well, I owned a ’69 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham and it was not a disappointment in comparison to modern cars. In fact, I much prefer the ’69 FB!
I actually drove a friend’s ’66 Fleetwood Brougham. Very impressive. A smooth ride, easy to drive, comfortable seats and plenty of room. I was tempted to buy it; may have if it didn’t have 220,000 miles on it.
Very interesting articles and responses. I was suprised to know 1965 Benz 600 (W100 short base) costed more than a Rolls-Royce Sliver Cloud, but its price of $20k then is about $155k today money, a bargain compared to a 2012 Maybach 62 S costed close to half million dollars.
When I looked the styles of those six cars, I found Benz look is strange, first time in my mind as a long time Mercedes product and W100 has a special place in my place, and more this model was designed by Paul Pracq, a master of designer in his own right. You see, Rolls-Royce stayed on its tradition, Jaguar had its dynamic flow, Cadillac had American exceptionalist style in full display, Lincoln was promised to be morden and simplistic look; and last Chrysler Imperial was very closed to a cheap Cadillac. Benze here put too much emphasis on its trade mark radiator gill that ruined its beautiful body. Therefore, in my taste, Lincoln is the most beautiful of all. Being beautiful is important for high society vehicle. Meusem of Morden Arts in New York should display 1963 Lincoln Continental, rather than a Jaguar XK.
Yesterday, saw a 10-15 year old M-B was broken down in middle of busy intersection, blocking traffic. With them being more common, such as the CLA, this is an image that may hurt them as did Cadillac and Lincoln.
I am reading this in a moment of retrospection in semi-lockdown in the UK. I read it at the time it came out, when I was far too young to drive, but still remember it. Looking back at the acceleration figures, all I can wonder having driven Chrysler products from that era is whether the Imperial had all eight spark plug leads attached.
I remember reading an article Tom Mccahill wrote about a Mercedes 600 that Mercedes gave him to drive from Florida to California, and then give his impressions. The only thing I remember about the article is he said while driving through Colorado on a mountain road, he noticed a well known American sports car behind him sliding out on turns trying to keep up with him, so he slowed down and let him pass so the driver wouldn’t kill himself.
I truly enjoy these old luxury comparisons. This time I printed the pages off so that I can take my leisure and read it over without squinting at a screen. Keep them coming.
If the testers had been here in Houston in the summer that Mercedes wouldn’t have seemed so hot,,,,, pun intended.
Their A/C’s were marginal at best in LEGIT heat..