(first posted 5/27/2015) It may be said, rather unfairly perhaps, that CC has – in the past – placed Mercedes-Benz on a bit of a pedestal. Well, it’s time for the truth to out. What follows is a series of genuine (yes, seriously) concepts from the annals of MB history that show the profound influence from across the sea.
First up is this very Lincoln-esque hidden headlight treatment with a touch of 67 Grand Prix in the turn signals. That beak is very Bunkie.
Apparently someone from Mercedes-Benz attended a Detroit dinner party and came away with news of Chryco’s loop bumpers.
Would sir or madam like a halo roof with their coupé? Available in leather or MB-Tex.
Of course! A colonnade W126 S-class! Why didn’t they actually produce this?
The bad news on these 600-based Mercaminos; the red one was actually built.
Detroit’s influence can actually be traced back all the way to the 1950s. When a diffusion range was planned for the 300SL, this Breezeway variant came very close to production.
Maybe someone got a peek at the Dodge Firearrow concepts? Ok, so those were Ghia shapes and I’m probably clutching at straws…
…but here is Mercedes-Benz putting all the influences from all of Detroit’s late 1950s output into one car. All at the same time.
Like I said, these are genuine concepts. Paul Bracq produced most of the sketches but I think Friedrich Geiger did the 300SL and possibly Bruno Sacco on the Firearrow. I don’t know who came up with the colonnade.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind one of those loop bumper coupés.
Wonderful images. Never seen them before.
How I wish they would go back to such hand painted / drawn renderings instead of the photoshopped virtual reality crap we have today.
Wow! Actually, I kind of like some of these, like those loop bumper models (which look to me like viable 1969 Studebakers 🙂 )
That last one, Oh, My! Looks positively Soviet. Are we sure this isn’t an attempt to revive the Horsch from somewhere in East Germany?
There was such a thing by… Studebaker and it was covered here before: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/concept-classic-studebaker-sceptre-the-thunderbird-from-south-bend/
Fortunately engineers had more influence in Stuttgart than did designers.
Fortunately engineers had WAAAAAAAY more influence in Stuttgart than did designers. And management didn’t take designers seriously.
Thank god!
These are all amazing! Great photo finds.
The real broughams are Cadillac’s.
Cadillac had body styles with the label Brougham (or Town Brougham) going back to the World War One era. How many other luxury car makes might have also used that term I don’t know. The term has meaning for horse drawn carriages but is fuzzy at best regarding car bodies.
The term at Curbside Classics seems to relate more to overdone interior’s than body styles, except of course overstuffed vinyl tops are one aspect. The fact that Mercedes had some wild drawings of cars does not mean that they seriously considered put many of them into production.
The grille on that last one looks like what made it onto the full size ’74 Pontiacs.
Today’s smaller MB’s look like Hyundai’s. I think the stylists finally wrestled control. Not a fan.
+1
These designs look like sketches to go with a Jack Baruth alternate history in which the gas crisis and CAFE never happened. MB was forced to go big or go home after the public decided the 1970s GM sedans weren’t too big, they were JUST RIGHT.
As my name suggests I did own not one but two W111s, aka Fintail or Heckflosse. These were probably the closest Daimler-Benz came to trying to appeal to the American market in terms of “style.”
Some people told me the fins on my ’67 230S reminded them of a ’57 Chevy. A couple of folks said they were reminiscent of a ’59 Rambler. I tend to agree with the latter view.
One thing is for sure, with the possible exception of the rear fins, the car looked stately and rode like a limousine.
I like the first rendering in this article except for the “Bunkie Beak.”
I have to say, those loop bumpered models should have happened. They are so much more modern than what MB did go with…for decades.
Yes! Really, from the Ponton to the W124 the Mercedes sedan grille always looked like a tacked-on afterthought.
The Brits did the same thing, granted, but for them it was usually the only external signifier the owner had shelled out for a Wolseley, Riley or MG saloon rather than a working-class Austin or Morris (or Sunbeam rather than Hillman, etc.)
M-B didn’t do badge engineering so they didn’t even have that excuse.
Mercedes had perpetual internal battles about whether to keep or ditch the traditional radiator grille, going back to the 60s. . History shows who won, but ultimately they did start, bit by bit. They were just too afraid of alienating their customers, as it had become such an icon.
There’s no doubt in my mind that cars like the W124 were designed to have been built either way.
These sketches are really cool thanks Don! The “Colonnade” has Bruno Sacco written all over it, from the shape of the doors to the abrupt cutoff of the trunk lid. It’s ugly though.
The Paul Bracq “Imperials” look fantastic and so does the “El Camino”, at least in sketch form.
Do New Zealanders celebrate April Fools in May?
OK, so there’s no sign of trickery here… but I definitely read the article twice to be sure I wasn’t missing a subtle hint. After googling the Benzamino and discovering it’s real, I’m convinced.
Searching for the Benzamino led me to this, which I *think* is real… The proportions seem to leave no room for an engine, let alone a real M100.
Ooops, here’s the pic.
I don’t think so…..
Looks like something I would have done for kicks. Then, 20 years from now, folks would be debating its authenticity. People will be so jaded, they won’t (and shouldn’t) believe anything they see in a photo.
Looks like a photoshop pic.
The Benzomino/El Benzo is a private project from famed W100 restorer Karl Middelhauve. He’s one of the greatest authorities on the Mercedes 600, and perhaps one of the few outside Mercedes themselves who can restore a 600 from the ground up. He has several cars for sale, and given the right price, I think he can part with any of his cars. He invented a completely new top and a new computerized injection system for the M100-engine, worthy of perhaps another 150hp or so. Several of his cars are supercharged. And that’s from the place Jay Leno bought his brown supercharged 600.
However, Middelhauve is a personal friend of the Mercedes-designer Paul Bracq, and he had Bracq design those pickups for him as a personal favour. It’s just one of those things you can do when you have a couple of 600-shells scrapped for parts that’s just laying around the backyard. And what’s so fun is that he commissioned those designs from the original 600 designer, though they are made now in this century. It’s just one of those things…
Here’s a link to Middelhauves own site, with lots of pics on the pickup conversion.
http://www.mbgrand600.com/Page80.html
Mixed reactions = wow , COOL ! .
Shudder .
That’s interesting .
Shudder .
I can’t make up my mind , guess I’ll keep my old ‘Benz’ .
FWIW , there were scads of custom M-B pickups made , some were really nice , others not so much , all had very short beds making them useless to me .
-Nate
These are cool, extra so if real.
The drawings that appear to be from 1969 – 1972 era seem plausible. These were the sort of designs that were hot in the middle and higher priced rungs of the American market of the time. MB had no way to know their European product would be so successful in the US after 1974.
With a slightly different grill, the first picture would have looked at home in just about any US GM dealership in 1970. I think it comes closest to being an alternate universe Grand Prix.
“MB had no way to know their European product would be so successful in the US after 1974.”
I think you hit the nail on the head but personally believe they knew around 1970 that they would not need to copy Detroit styling to be successful in the US. That said the 107 and 116 did have an awful lot of American bloat in them…
Fascinating. Some seem so right; others, not so much.
It is interesting to note how the tables turned, and turned so rapidly. Mercedes was using Detroit elements in concepts in the ’50s and ’60s; by the mid 1970s Ford was hawking a car that was supposedly indistinguishable from a Mercedes.
This was a very enjoyable article.
Ironically, considering when I look at a pre-facelift (in particular) Granada, everything about it shouts “FORD!” as loud as the cartoon guy in the ’50s ads whose mouth formed the letters…
But then I was born in ’74 so they were around in my earliest consciousness.
Kind of shocked that these are real concepts, especially that last one (what were they thinking there?) The first one with the hidden headlamps is interesting; if the grille were less beaky, it might actually work. The loop bumper cars are clean, but I think a 70’s Benz without a fully separate grille just doesn’t work. And that Benzamino drawing–why on earth does the red one have side exhaust? Really? If that’s truly Bracq’s work I wonder if he was under the influence of something there. The shape is clean, but the side exhaust just vaults it over into 70’s camp.
I don’t think this site places Benzes on a pedestal. And if it did, I don’t think the comment section would let them get away with it. Even “car guys” talk a lot of crap about them. I always wonder if these negative commenters have personal experience with them.?
I’m an M-B fanboi so although I have lots of experience with them , I don’t like to mention the occasional issues .
-Nate
Having fun lw. The way this site is run, there are some cars held up as paragons of virtue, but there’s also room for valid criticism of said car either by the contributors or commentariat. I’m not sure the perfect car has ever been made.
The last picture remind me of a Mercedes version of Packards Black Bess prototype.
The last one reminds me of “The Homer”.
When it comes to design, everyone is always looking over the fence, or the big pond. While Ford was imitating Mercedes, Mercedes was imitating Fords. The difference is what they actually built 🙂
That next-to-last concept looks like the front end might have been influenced by the ’68-’69 Toronado.
Wow, these are amazing to see! Some are quite nice, others not so much… but it really does show how design inspiration really does travel the globe.
The last drawing reminds of a 1959 Edsel.
1. Mercedes Coupe de Ville.
2 a-b. What they should’ve built in the ’70s. But would the sealed-beam US version have gone the hidden-headlights route or not?
3 a-b-c. I’m seriously surprised this wasn’t offered as a dealer add-on. Or that these drawings weren’t burned to prevent that.
4. Those are some highly extended-looking cabs for the ’60s.
5. Wow. Doesn’t really fit, the Breezeway roof is the only sharp line on the whole car.
6. Benz of THA FEWCHA!!! Very slick, would’ve been utterly ruined by 5-mph bumpers.
7. Ogodno. This makes for the most interesting what-if, though; “What if Mercedes had fell victim to a Deadly Sin-level styling disaster right when they were starting to sell in America?”
I think you’re all a bit overly harsh on your reactions on these cars. Even though sketches were made, we just have no idea what went behind the reasoning behind them. Every car maker tries out different design directions that weren’t perhaps meant to be taken seriously.
And that’s why you try them out, so that you can discard the thoughts that just didn’t have any bearing in them. And all of these are discarded proposals, we just have no idea how they resoned. though I don’t want to criticize the author of this article, I for one would rather have had it properly researched so that we could’ve gotten an answer to all those questions. It’s simply futile to second guess what the reasons really were.
The body between the wheelhouse of the colonnade W126 looks more or less production ready, while the rear doesn’t. I’d guess that’s not so much a design proposal, but a mule trying out different shapes on aerodynamics alone. I.e. throwing out the looks trying out the shape.
That last pic was a serious proposition though for the 600. Remember, Paul Bracq was very young, mid-20’s. And that’s a designers wet dream at the time, extra everything. And I’m sure he was glad they said something like: “Nah… I don’t thing we’re going down that road after all” before they instructed him to pen something more “Clean, serene, and sinister”.
You nailed it, Ingvar. There are so many drawings done for a model’s development, because in a lot of ways they are the cheapest resource. Try as many visual angles as possible before moving on to scale model stage. I’ve got a Nissan Skyline article coming up and there are almost too many styling sketches to include in the article, which is a bit of a change.
I think the last one and the ute are both travesties, but the rest of the concepts featured are quite attractive. I’ve been imagining my w116 with a loop bumper. Hehehe.
I think the three coupes between the loopbumpers and the W126 are the most interesting. I don’t know if it’s readily apparent, but those are 600 coupe proposals. And that’s quite fun, because I don’t know if I have ever seen a 600 coupe that wasn’t just a 600 two door sedan. And I’ve always tried to imagine how a “real” 600 coupe would look like if it was done properly.
Thanks for that Ingvar. I’ve seen pics of the ‘two-door sedan’ version of the 600; didn’t know these were 600 proposals.
I think the bunkie beaked one looks sweet!
The first illustration looks like something I’d have professionally framed and matted. I love that stuff. I see a lot of “Detroit” in these renderings, for sure. The “Colonnade” reminds me a bit of a Ford Sierra with a trunk. Great collection and post, Don.
I’m just picturing (or rather, hearing) a Slant Six or a 360 or 440 V8 in pictures 3 and 4. Tha-dum, tha-dum, tha-dum…
Mercedes was willing to experiment with the formal grille, to see what they might come up with.
Per the Rolls Camargue posting of earlier this week, R-R was not willing to experiment, and laid a big fat egg of a car as a result.
When engineers or stylists say, “We can’t do it this new way, because we have always done it the same old way”, its time to consider running for the exits.
I see a lot of ’65 Chrysler in the front ends of that pair of renderings.
On Monday as I was driving back home from having my XJ6 smogged, (successfully, thankfully, I might add!) I saw a similar model Jag up ahead, but it was missing it’s decklid. I imagined that it had been removed for some type of repair. As it turned right at a signal I could see that the cabin had been shortened to a two seater length, right behind the front door. The body had been shortened by the length of the rear doors. The roof had been mated to the original back light by some well made and finished, metal panels. I pulled up alongside and observed the driver, who was a bit more mature than I. The entire car appeared to be well constructed and had a nice paint job. I wish that I had a smartphone because I would have liked to snap a few photos. Despite the lack of a tailgate it was a well finished project. I can only wonder why anyone would have made this conversion.