(submitted by jim) One winter about 17 years ago we drove from Melbourne to Adelaide via the coast. Some of the side trips were over unsealed roads and the second attachment records the result. The ribbed lenses indeed work as Stuttgart intended. The effect was actually more pronounced in reality hence taking the photograph.
We still have the car today; it’s just clocked 324K kms, and the little guy pictured in the rear is about to turn 20.
those were the great days of Mercedes. Those lights stayed even cleaner with a coat of car wax on them. Just apply and remove quickly.
i’d have to agree those were the days of mercedes really being “king of the road”. back then that meant reliability and durability that no other car could match. today mercedes is still sorta “king of the road”, but only bc they pack their cars with incredible technology. technology that other cars adopt 5-10 yrs later. as for reliability and durability – imo they are average to slightly under average in that department. there’s just too much to go wrong today.
Not really. Mercedes, Audi, BMW, Volvo, Lexus, and Acura all nip at one another’s heels. None of them has an overall big lead (and certainly not a 5-10 year lead!) over the others in terms of packing their cars with incredible technology.
Ford Europe kind of copied the idea with their serrated profile rear lights from 1978 to the early ’80s (though from the Sierra onwards they went back to smooth rear lights). Probably not as effective and really it was, for them, a quickly passing phase.
The decline in Mercedes Benz parallels the reduction of ribbing on their taillight lenses.
Yup! A great many thoughtful, deliberate, practical/safety-minded details on Mercedes and Volvo cars—like these what Mercedes called “corrugated” safety lights—were early victims of those companies’ decision to market a lifestyle rather than an automobile.
And make them too complicated to drive. The old school Mercedes-Benz were so damn intuitive, and the controls were easier to figure out and to be operated tactically without taking your eyes off the road. Nice to do that when you are driving at 200 km/h on the Autobahn.
I drove the hired cars often, including ones from Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz, and I ended up spending lot of time, familiarising myself with new set of controls. Sometimes I ended up looking at the controls too long to see which I need to push or turn. And the worst part was gear selectors. They contradicted everything I had done with traditional P-R-N-D-3-2-1.
I complained to the car hire agencies not to take the owner’s handbooks out of cars: just leave the quick overview manuals for us to figure our ways through the dashboard controls.
Ribbed for her pleasure
VW also adopted deep ribbed lights in the Brasilia and Variant II in Brazil. As the Mercedes cars used to be almost all unknown at that time, when the E and SL appeared here, those tail lights never passed unnoticed: “Look! It has Brasilia lights!”
Forgive my ignorance, what are they for?
The dirt/dust/snow that usually swirls up and cakes itself over every flat surface of the rear of the car collects on the ribs and not the indentation part of the light. As a result, the lights are much more visible than on an equivalent vehicle with smooth surface lights when dirty/snowy etc.
Lol…I assumed that, but he really didn’t come out and say it, so thanks for clearing that up!
That’s a beautiful color combination on that car. I assume this is the one that Don Andreina mentions now and again. I’d love to hear more about it, have we featured it otherwise previously?
Pushing hard for a COAL from this esteemed gentleman. Hopefully this amuse bouche has whetted his writing appetite.
I did know what the reason was behind ‘ribbing’ the taillights, but this photo from Australia demonstrates the purpose very well. I remember coming home from Yamhill County to the Portland hills after work one snowy night, and closing in on a ’62-67 Beetle. With all the dirt accumulated on the taillights, I couldn’t tell if the driver had their lights on, only when they pulled over to let me pass did I see the headlights were on, so I assume so were the taillights but could not tell for all of the dirt on the rear of the car.
Cool to see in practice. It would work equally effectively on road salt, which can cover cars sometimes for weeks in fine powder form, during winter.
I grew up in the 70s, when many passive safety features like this were being added to cars. I disliked the brougham barges Detroit was selling. And the pollution, space inefficiency, and poor mileage that plagued them. I was buoyed by the advances being made with safety, and more environmentally friendly cars. Loved reading about the introduction of the catalytic converter, unleaded gas, and widespread adoption of radial tires. The introduction of amber rear turn lenses on some domestic cars. It was one thing I did like about the Mustang II and Granada. 🙂
I would have appreciated these ribbed tail light lenses at the time, if I knew what they were for.
There used to be a Canadian science show produced in the late 70s called ‘Science International/What Will They Think of Next?’, that would have readily covered a topic like these ribbed tail lights.
Our old 1984 Chrysler E-Class also had ribbed tail lights, and they also served a purpose.
What purpose?
Maybe because Lee Iacocca wanted to make his cars look like a Mercedes!
I liked them, although the “chrome” on the ribs wore off easily…
Look at the wipers. They are made to cover a great part of the windshield/screen.
And the front and rear window surrounds are made to keep the water away.
And the sides too.
Yeah, it gets even better with the W124 mono-wiper that has an eccentric motion to cover more of the glass that you’d think possible/
My GL450 does something similar with one of its two wipers wherein it moves all over the place getting more of the window cleared. Like having a little Klaus or Jürgen out there with a squeegee hard at work…
Great innovations that did not last: Hubscheibenwischer!
I remember hearing that Mercedes changed to their “ergonomic” shaped gear shift handle (away from the little round ball they previously had) not only because it fit your hand better, but because in an accident it couldn’t gouge out someone’s eyeball.
I believe they also used larger diameter steering wheels because the driver’s arms would be further away from his rib cage, encouraging better breathing – hence a more alert driver.
When they first went to power side view mirrors, they were only on the passenger side (switch in the center console) because it wasn’t safe for the driver to reach across the car to manually adjust the right mirror, but he could still get more precise mirror placement by manually adjusting the drivers side mirror!
And I recall that MBZ didn’t use electric seats for years and years because there wasn’t a design that could stand up to a severe accident. They all failed and allowed the seats to move upon impact.
Ironically, they used recirculating ball power steering instead of rack-and-pinion which I NEVER understood. MBZ steering was more precise than Detroit’s attempts, but certainly not as precise as rack-and-pinion. I guess you weren’t supposed to corner a Mercedes as hard as you did a BMW (?)
Idea for a CC theme: American automobiles with “Mercedes-Benz”-grille.
Fx Chevrolet Malibu 1974 and one of the Chrysler K-cars, and quite a few more.
And another theme: Great innovations that did not last, fx Audi trunklid hinge.
(like the ribbed lenses).
Add 1985-1986 Cougar to the list
Or the wannabe oval quad headlamps, on the embarrassing Kia Amanti.
Very heavily influeced by the Mercedes E-Class, at the time.
Even, if you squinted as hard as you can, drunk off your arse, from a distance…It still couldn’t be mistaken for a Mercedes. 😛
Ribbed for your driving pleasure.
OMG: It’s a 6,9!
I had the great pleasure of driving one of these cars for a couple of months, in my shady used car days. Mine was a European spec 280SE, with no air, power windows or any other option, except the huge sunroof. Said huge roof was opened manually, and was so easy it moved with a wonderful “whoosh.”
The body of the car was very strong, and it rode and handled beautifully. It wasn’t very heavy, so the straight six was quite fast for its day. The materials were top notch, and the whole car screamed “quality.” Nowadays, when I am in any Mercedes-Benz product, all I can think is, “You want this much for this?”
There is absolutely nothing special about a new Mercedes-Benz.
Of course, I drove this car last, say, 30 years ago. Perhaps were I to drive a 1972 280SE today, I may not like.
As well as the Dodge 1500 (argentinian Hillman Avenger/Plymouth Cricket) from 1978 to 1982.
Every time I drive my W123 230E from 1983, I feel the quality.
My 1980 Mercury Grand Marquis had ribbed tail lamp lenses.
Those were purely decorative. They were not functional like the MB items.
I seem to recall a lot of Mercurys and some Pontiacs (especially wagons) in the ’80s had that style of taillights.
Just because they weren’t as deepset as the Mercedes units, doesn’t mean they weren’t functional.
Although, I do agree with you, that Mercury didn’t have safety in mind, the way Mercedes did. 😉
Thank you, Paul…an inability to convert a pfd to a jpg back on Aug 25 has become a first post! Thanks also to commenters for the recognition of the merits of DB engineering from the period. And yes I’d love to do a COAL piece on this, the car we have owned longest.
Bring it on, would love to read about it. To paraphrase Don above, this amuse bouche has certainly whetted my appetite to read more about it!
Brilliant engineering, effective and very low cost. Even worked on smokey old 240D’s.
The Ford Aerostar also has ribbed tail lights, whether or not the ribbed design is actually functional. This one is off of mine.
Add Plymouth Caravelle to the exclusive list.
Who started it, Buick with Riviera ’66?
That’s really just trim over flat taillight lenses, which the Riviera was definitely not the first (1965 Pontiac LeMans and Mercury Comet immediately come to mind if horizontal trim is in question). The first Mercedes with louvered lenses was the R107 SL in 1971
The 1964 Pontiac Lemans and GTO used louvered chrome trim extending the entire width of the taillights and back panel. Mercedes did a much classier job with their taillight designs.
Oddly, every M-B I see of this era has one of its taillights packed to blackness with Diesel soot, while the other one is perfectly clear.
Well, if you consider so many of those cars were Diesel-powered (here in Uruguay there were next to none of the gas cars, making those terribly expensive Mercedes very slow), it’s easy to see the left side taillight, bumper and trunklid, as well as any chrome that might be around, would be blackened. Also, the few that came with gas engines were eventually swapped for 200/8, 220/8 and 240 D engines (BTW, it might be interesting to anybody who’s not from here to see how many cars had Mercedes engines installed here; from 1 year old Opel Rekord E, to 1948 Chryslers)
Sooty back end on old Mercedes Diesels is always an owner failure to maintain fault .
I have three now and none have this issue, one has 360,000 + hard miles and is going through an engine overhaul, the other has 400,000 + miles and also doesn’t smoke .
The W116 illustrated is a fine car, too fancy for me but still well loved the world over .
-Nate
Those vintage Mercedes were simply marvelous automobiles. If you were fortunate enough to own one you drove the best car in the world.
Even with so much competition nowadays from the luxury Asian brands and BMW and Jaguar, Mercedes Benz has never lost its touch. They still build some of the most beautiful, solid, reliable and technically advanced automobiles in the world.
Mercedes is selling more cars in the US today than ever before. That’s something that Cadillac and Lincoln can only dream about.
Well, in the 70s a Lincoln or a Cadillac certainly was more comfortable, better equipped, quieter and more powerfull (with the exception of the 6,9) and their drivedrain was (especially Cadillac) extremely smooth compared to Mercedes. Mb had some trouble with their carburators and a 280 S with automatic is hardly powerfull.
Yes the MB had better steering and maybe braking, and certainly better handling than especially Lincolns of the vintage, but I prefer to cruise in silence at 70 mph and not feel minor or major bumps and potholes in the road, compared to that somewhat harsh riding MB’s of this era. The workmanship was outstanding at Mercedes though, in the 70s Lincoln was ok, Cadillacs interior looked like an upscale Chevrolet from 71-76.
My 67 Riviera has ribs on the tail lights.
Just checked the vehicle rego on the vicroads rego check site, it’s still cruising around – rego expires 13th of november this year.
Still going strong after decades of service.