Since I got such interesting feedback for my post on miscellaneous curbside classics around my neighborhood of Berlin Neukölln, I decided to start a little series and invite you on another walk around my little corner of the world. I actually have to thank the German government to be able to do this write-up: Since I am on state subsidized part-time employment since the arrival of our first-born child, I get to spend much more time walking around with my son and taking the following photographs. During one of those walks I spotted this concours-worthy Ford Taunus 20M Coupe.
I have a weakness for Japanese curbside classics from the mid-eighties to mid-nineties as they seem to be the all-time high point in build-quality in the history of the automobile. Amongst this group of vehicles, one serious contender for the best build quality arguably is the Toyota Corona which was sold in Europe as the Carina 2 between 1987 and 1991. This example presents nicely in dark red metallic. My mechanic told me the front brake pads on his Carina 2 lasted 140k miles….
My last post had a strong focus on camper-vans. While today I will focus on a lower to the ground species – the sedan – I just cannot withhold from you this beautiful LHD Mitsubishi Delica Star Wagon! This one is a 2.4 liter Turbodiesel with an automatic transmission and a wooden steering wheel. I wonder how many LHD Delica Star Wagons made it to continental Europe! This one, sporting British plates, is the first one I have seen in 30 years of car spotting.
Here is a less fancy, still quite beautiful European RHD version of the Delica, which was of course called Mitsubishi L300.
Time-jump to the nineties! This Mazda Xedos 6 – or Eunos 500 as it was known in Japan and Australia – wasn‘t much of a commercial success with barely 70.000 produced. Positioned in an awkward corner of the market where it aimed higher than it could shoot, and cursed with bad packaging I still cannot help but think that is really beautiful vehicle. The profile in particular seems worthy of a Jaguar. Just call it an X-Type generation zero!
Oligarchs, UN officials on a peace mission, ISIS military commanders, Australian farmers – many important folks fancy themselves a nice Land Cruiser, and for a reason. As impressively preserved and ready to cross the Sahara an example as this one is, why you would drive it in Berlin is beyond me. But then the license plates say it is from Munich and we all know the Bavarians are a different story….
Speaking of Bavaria, this one is going to be interesting mostly to our non-European readers I assume. Competing for the most awkward looking BMW in the history of the brand (with the first generation 1-series hatchback, and the 2-series grand tourer, a high-roof elongated version of the above vehicle), this BMW 225xe active tourer stands out mostly for its hybrid drivetrain with the Mini 1.5 liter turbo-three powering the front wheels and a 65KW/85hp electric motor powering the rear wheels in a more traditionally BMW way. Together this makes for a fast (0-62 in 6.7) if somewhat overweight (3800lbs!) raised hatchback which, if you really wanted to, you could call a CUV.
Granted, the BMW isn’t really a classic car and more than a few summers will pass until it gets there. It will be interesting to see how the complicated drivetrain holds up over time.
The W126 S-Class has been written about more than enough. Still I thought I would present one of the lesser seen early examples. Although I am a friend of the two tone Sacco plastic cladding, without it, the W126 looks even more elegant. Does anyone have a clue about those wheels? I have never seen these on a W126 before, but find them quite attractive.
When have you last seen an Audi 100 C2, well-preserved or just barely breathing? What about a C1? Exactly. That’s what I felt like when I saw this. Unbelievable. When we think of Audi as the brand it is today, this is where it all began. Is it just me or is there more than just a bit of BMW E3 in the side view. But maybe it was just that time.
And yet another DS. It’s funny how these things manage to look as much as spaceships now as they must have when they came out in 1955. A Goddess that isn’t of this world! (yet is street-parked as if it were).
The Opel Frontera is one of those GM vehicles that was offered under a million different names in every corner of the earth. It’s only remarkable for its abundance and quality to forget about it one second after you saw it. It’s the fate of these kinds of vehicles that they disappear quickly, workhorses that none gives a second thought about preserving. Imagine my face as I saw one looked as i fit had just rolled of the assembly line!
When the first generation Smart two-door came out, a lengthy public discussion ensued about the right to sideways park the quintessential mini car that has since made it across the ocean and spawned kids and grandkids. While it was never officially allowed to park a Smart sideways, many people still do it in Berlin and apparently, one class higher, in the kei class of cars, people are following suit. The Subaru Libero now has a cult following and in my neighborhood alone I see 5 or 6 of them regularly. Like this one, they all are kept in admirable shape!
A Saab Cabrio from the late eighties is the logical choice for the big city lawyer or a dentist’s wife. We see many of these and if you want one, better be ready to put 20 grand on the table. What I never see, though, is a 900 sedan, which is even more awkward looking than the hatchback. Say what you will about the design, but there just isn’t another vehicle like a 900. Rest in peace Saab, I hated to see you go.
If you buy a Mercedes-Benz, you want to stand out, and comfortably so. But what if every tenth car is a Mercedes, like in Germany? What even if you see like 20 classic S-Class everyday?
Low and behold, here is the ultimate classic vehicle from the Swabian boosters of the German postwar economy. Take it to a car show and you will just block out the three Gullwings standing behind it. For a better sense of scale, i left a, comparably minuscule, Sprinter in the frame.
Can anyone identify this behemoth? Trucks aren’t my strong suit. (ED: it’s a former moving van)
Speaking of a classic S-Class, the German classic car scene has engaged in a fierce battle over whether a period correct pimped car should really count as a classic, as it is modified from its factory specifications. While I don’t really have an opinion on that, what about a car that is modified with parts FROM THE FUTURE, like this W126 with what looks like W220 wheels?
The unloved three series. Less power and handling than an e30 while not as good looking as an 02, this is how Germancarsforsale desribed the awkward position of the E21 in the heritage of small BMWs. But while BMWs have become ever uglier throught the past 15 years(with the notable exception of the F30 3-series maybe), the shark-nosed E21 now looks like a much more attractive offer.
In the comments to my last post, the question arose why all these camper vans are parked in the streets and if people live in them. It is hard to say. With the real estate market spiraling towards the heavens and both foreign and domestic capital quadrupling land prices in some neighborhoods in Berlin over the last couple of years, more than a few people have resorted to a life less bound to unaffordable apartments. There definitely has been a strange coincidence of my neighborhood’s gentrification and the appearance of camper vans parked in the street. The line between poverty and hip has never been finer.
And thus is is always unclear whether a nicely preserved early L300 like this is a fun weekend toy for the newly wealthy or a refuge for someone who came to Berlin for the formerly cheap rents and then lost his apartment because of the German housing crisis.
This is where it gets good. The Renault 25 has enjoyed an elevated level of interest in the classic car scene over the past couple of years as its family tie to the Eagle Premier/Dodge Monaco have been highlighted. Those cars, or rather, there underpinnings, more than inspired an entire generation of the Chrysler cloud cars which helped the Pentastar to survive the early nineties until Mercedes, and then much later Fiat, but that’s another story. Anyway, rarely have the French and the Americans been closer in terms of the automotive than around 1990.
And yet the father of it all, the Renault R25 has now all but disappeared from the roads in Germany where admittedly it was sold in homeopathic quantities in the first place. I hadn’t seen one in like ten years when I ran into this specimen.
Now while I got all excited and risked my life to snap pics from the best angle and light which turned out to be in the middle of the road during rush traffic, I realized the gravity of my sighting. This was not a regular R25: Not only did it have the 2.1 liter Turbo Diesel, it also had Plates from a French overseas territory. Yes, some lover of the cloud car father had shipped his R25 all the way from French Guiana (yep, that is just north of Brazil ) to Berlin, Germany.
Now this is the kind of CC sighting that makes me wish I had played the lottery that day.
Berlin really is a paradise for CCs, I always try to make time when I’m there to walk around the block to snap a couple of shots.
I don’t know my old trucks very well either, but what I could find out quickly is that Mercedes truck is a “Kubische Kabine, mittelschwer”, built from 1965-1975.
And hey, that E21 is from my hometown. Small world indeed 🙂
Are Used Cars cheap in Germany?
I’d say there are plenty of affordable used cars
Used cars in general are, it becomes slightly more problematic with classics though. It’s not like in the good ol’ USA where they just dump cars somewhere and start them back up 30 years later, European cars are often sold off to Eastern Europe or Africa before they even get a chance to attain classic status. Also classics require a greater effort to keep on the road than in some other markets, the inspections are thorough and you can’t just drive any rusty death trap, which means that some cars have no choice but to face the crusher eventually. I’d call classic car prices alright, but they’re nothing to write home about, and they seem to get increasingly inflated.
That Audi floored me- a genuine unicorn.
That was the first Audi that was seriously promoted in the US, as a kind of cut rate Mercedes. They apparently had thousands of problems and quickly disappeared.
Which reminds me – I happened to drive across the US around a year or two after the Premier was introduced. I had driven one and also given their low sales I noticed them on the road. I remember a much higher number than I would have thought of them showing up on the interstates and in roadside rest areas. Then they all disappeared within a few years.
Could those Premiers have been rentals? I noticed the same thing about Mitsubishi Galants a few years back, as well as Dodge Journey’s. Most of the new and shiny Chrysler Pacificas and Mustang convertibles I See here bear the telltale barcode sticker of a rental.
Indeed – probably my pick of the group for the drive home
I can’t tell you how many times I scrolled back to the Audi 100. Wheels. Color. Design. Just beautiful!
Wonderful post. And lots of intelligent musings, Hannes.
I’d readily agree that that mid-’80’s-’90’s Japanese cars represent an unmatched quality highlight in auto history. For the average consumer, it really didn’t matter that the products themselves were largely dull – they worked with the sort of unerring essential reliability we’ve come to expect out of a new car now from any country.
I have to add a twist to your thoughts on that crazy Bavarian Landcruiser. In one of those delightful oddities of history, the high-roof Troop Carrier model here is not bought at all by farmers in the outback, but IS driven extensively by, well, Bavarians and all other Germans as hired tourist campers in the outback. And Englanders and Hollanders and others ofcourse, but in my limited experience of travelling into the proper outback, it was mostly Germans. Maybe one such tourist liked their time here so much they bought a sort-of keepsake for home use in Bavaria? I should add that the Germans I kept meeting in their highroof Landcruiser Campers were, with the Dutch, the most open-minded and engaging of the travellers I met. Not to mention the thirstiest, but that’s another story.
For completeness, I should explain that farmers here do indeed buy the Landcruiser (or “Landys” as we say), but largely in cab-chassis form. It’s the mining industry (and then tourist industry) that buys the Troop Carriers (or “Troopies” as we say). Practically none at all are sold for private, non-commercial use.
Rather remarkably, there’s an Audi 100 C1 just like the one photographed lurking in a garage just near to my home here. And as for the dry observation that the Renault 25 was “sold in homeopathic quantities” in Germany, that Audi is accompanied nextdoor by a (I think dead) R 25 – incredible considering Australian sales of these were so tiny as to make the German sales seem a hit, and undetectable enough to make even a homeopath lose faith!
+1. That Landcruiser immediately brought to mind a German couple I knew briefly in WA who largely lived out of an identical one.
We had the identical Audi 100 (same color even) to the one you found when we lived in Germany, at that point it (until 1981) it was starting to rust away, I recall my Dad sticking his key through the top of the fender just below the windshield. I can’t imagine how the owner keeps this one that immaculate. Other than the rust it was a fine car.
Once we moved over here, we had two more. Both were junk. Something didn’t work well in the translation. A great find, nonetheless.
Actually, all of them are excellent finds, Berlin does indeed seem to be a new fertile field of CC’s!
I never understood that. My uncle and aunt in Kassel both drove DKW’s, then Audi’s exclusively from the 50’s through the 90’s. They lived in one of the outlying villages, high up on a hill, and the FWD was essential to them. Hard to believe once upon a time that was a unique feature. Their first “Audi” was a little white Super 90 2 Door, which looked just like the F102 it replaced from the rear. Then came a 100LS, a 100GL, a 100 Avant and finally a 200 Turbo Avant.
I always liked the cars, and the relatives were obviously happy with them. Not true for thousands of Audi owners stateside.
My Dad also started with a DKW over there. Then a beige Super90, then two 100LS’s in a row, both automatics which was really rare but the only to convince my mom to drive them (Note we were still a one-car family over there).
Once we moved here was a ’74 100LS and then a ’71 100LS, both with issues, the ’71 worse than the ’74. After that a half-hearted look at a 1980 5000 diesel, then purely Japanese and Domestic iron. Once I got my own license and income, then I started working on refilling the coffers of the Germans again by myself. I’ve now had five Audis but really can’t/won’t complain about any of them, the newest and last being a low mileage 95.5 S6 Avant.
Nice group of pictures, including that green Taunus. This generation Taunus has an interesting story. Apparently buyers rejected the original 1968 styling (all new for that year – see the attached picture) so Ford Germany in desperation created a new front end and side styling for the 1969 model year. That front looks a tad Lincoln-esque, doesn’t it?
IIRC, the big German Ford of 1967 (model P7) was no longer called Taunus, just 17M or 20M. It got a facelift in middle 68 becoming the P7b and that style was kept until the end in 1971. The green hardtop with 4 headlights would be a 69 or later 26M.
Much appreciated correction, AGB!
Thanks for another great tour! That BMW e21 (called the 320i in the US) occupied the exact same spot here that you describe. By the mid 80s the newer series was considered more modern and the 2002 was still much beloved. This one was sort of neither here nor there and never developed a deep following.
I still laugh about the Audi 100 of the early 70s. I may have shared here before that the dealer where my mother bought her 74 LeMans was also handling Honda and Audi. I recall seeing a 100 LS in the service lane and without knowing anything about the car sort of assumed that it was maybe a notch up from the Honda Civic, maybe something in line with the larger VWs. Oops. A guy could probably still be working on the supply of 1974 Honda Civics he could afford for the cost of the Audi + the cost of repairs in the first 5 years. 🙂
I love that Ford Taunus up top. I always found it strange how little of Ford’s German stuff made it to the US, where the English Fords had gotten more than a fair chance here. Had they brought more of the German Fords here before exchange rates went bonkers in the 70s they might have gotten a decent foothold.
In the rather unloved C900 sedan’s defense, it feels a lot more tight in corners than the hatchback or convertible; the body structure retains its rigidity better, and the rare-for-USA 2 door coupe is even more so
I actually think the 900 looks best in the sedan bodystyle – if only for its rarity.
I’m pregty sure those wheels on the first W126 are period correct Lorinser aftermarket items.
Thx for that, Mads. I was really wondering. I think they look very good on the W126, and I am usually very skeptical of aftermarket modifications in general.
Wonderful pictures and narration. Thanks for posting!
Thanks, I really appreciate it. My pleasure!
What a great selections of motors. My favorites are the DS and blue Audi.
Yet another terrific set of finds. Like others here, I’m astonished to see an Audi 100 on the streets.
The Delica intrigues me, partly because I saw one up-close for the first time this past year. Japanese-market imports have become much more common here in Virginia lately, and this is one such example — a Delica SuperExceed with the Crystal-Lite roof, no less! I hope to do a longer write-up on this one sometime, but for now here it is. I really liked this van:
This is the rear area — messy, but still seriously neat:
Excellent wander through a great city, though you don’t tell us about that tidy looking Opel Rekord Coupe!
I hope your son enjoys being a Curbivore too!
Very cool pictures, thank you for sharing them! Doesn’t Germany have really strict rules about older cars, kind of like the ones in Japan that send their used cars across the globe, rather than keeping them? How hard is it to keep/register a “classic” in Germany?
Nice walkabout, Those Japanese vans are still quite common here though cars like 80s Carinas and the best selling Corona are getting scarce, there was a NZ only Amon version locally assembled, Those Isuzu Wizards got badged with every local GM flavour they had, Another DS rare cars here later models are a bit more common,
Very nice, thanks for sharing.
One thing that strikes me is the left hand drive Japanese vehicles. Many of those are only seen as right hand drive imports here in BC. Strange if they are also available as lhd, why not import those?
Anyway, really appreciate your photos.
The Ford Taunus 20M and the Audi 100 C1 bring back so many memories of my family’s European odyssey in 1977.
We purchased a blue Audi 100LS Automatic in Greece. Long story short it had not been (quite unintentionally) purchased within the law, so we had to drive it to Germany to sell it and purchase another used car there, which turned out to be a silver Ford 26M sedan, an automatic as they all were.
As I was only 10 at the time I didn’t quite understand the reasons behind the complicated exchange but by and large it was something to do with a few stupid Greek laws of the time..(I can say that as my background is Greek!)
The Audi was somewhat familiar as they sold them at home in Australia. Not so the Ford. The Ford was both more powerful and had more gadgets than the Audi like a factory power sunroof that despite my constant playing around with, never malfunctioned. However the Audi according to my father nicer to drive and more reliable. Even my mother who knows absolutely nothing about cars said the Audi was nicer and she kept repeating this many many years later. I can’t remember the exact issues with the Ford but I think it used to overheat.
As our family was raised on a diet of spartan air cooled Volkswagens, both cars were in any case a revelation…
Hey AntiSUV,
Driving not quite legally acquired vehicles across Europe in the early 70ies – that sounds like a fascinating story and I would love to hear all about it. Why not tell it in a stand-alone CC post😉
Very handsome Taunus in a great colour. But I have to choose the blue Mercedes van. I can see that with a couple of 300SLR gullwings within and ‘Team Andreina’ painted along the sides.
I notice no visible rust on these vehicles; what is used for winter traction?