There is was again. Once more, out of the corner of my eye, a black Benz flashed its distinctively pointy derriere as it turned around a corner and out of sight. This happened on a fairly regular basis – about once a month, for over a year, the same Fintail would appear – either it was stationary while I was driving past in a vehicle, or the other way around. I saw it at random hours of the day, and at night as well – obviously a local.
As I approached, it tried to duck behind a hedge…
Or maybe somebody who wants me to think they’re local. Paranoia was setting in. I’d bagged a few interesting Mercs in my little corner of Asia over the past 18 months, but this black W110 was resisting me. What in the Heckflosse did that Benz want? Why couldn’t it just stand still and be photographed? I began to call it “fintailing” (definition: a particular car keeps showing up in your area, but only a glimpse at a time. If you manage to photograph the car once in passing, that’s “finteasing.”)
Until the other day, when I finally caught up with it, hiding in plain sight.
So who likes Fintails? I’ll raise my hand – why don’t I see Dr Andreina (whose excellent post on car’s design is a must-read) and a few others raising theirs, too? Come on, such a classic shape! There are so many variants that fall under the W110 / W111 / W112 denominations that it can be tricky to keep up. Fortunately, there is ample information and factory photos available on-line on all these cars. Talk about a rabbit hole. So, mostly for my personal benefit, here’s another set of T87 tables, which I would entitle: Heckflosse für Dummies.
Taken altogether, the W110 / W111 / W112 family was made in over a million units, at a minimum. I’m not sure the totals above include the CKD kits assembled in various places around the world – including Thailand.
The 4-cyl. cars, initially 190 / 190 D, became the 200 / 200 D in the summer of 1965, with several small changes, the most visible being the deletion of the A-pillar turn signals, chrome-less fins and revised rear lights. Under the bonnet, the 200 had a 2-litre (1988cc) OHC 4-cyl. engine fed by two Solex carburetors, which produced 105 hp (SAE) / 95 hp (DIN), usually mated to a 4-speed manual gearbox. A 4-speed automatic was available, but few 200s were ordered with it, compared to their more prestigious siblings. Gearshift placement, both for auto and manual versions, was up to you: column or floor, no extra charge. Alas, given our feature car’s darkened windows, I was unable to tell what the interior looked like – much less photograph it.
Fintail dash-o-rama! Clockwise from top left: 200 D & 220 S saloon, 300 SE & 220 SE cabriolet
So here’s some from the web – the top left one is what it might have looked like in there, albeit with the wheel on the right, of course. But Thai-owned classic cars, like many aspects of Thai culture, are not always what they seem on the outside. Aside from the automatic box, here are the factory options you could specify when ordering your W110 in 1967: ivory steering wheel / switchgear – heavy-duty clutch / suspension / battery – searchlight – two-tone horn – radial / whitewall / all-weather tyres – steel sunroof – tinted glass – radiator blind – special paint — bumper guards – heated rear screen – roof / ski rack – first-aid kit – glovebox lock & light – power steering – Full MB-Tex / full leather interior – Becker radio with rear speaker & electric antenna – passenger-door mirror – petrol tank lock – viscous fan – fire extinguisher – coconut floormats. No, I’m not making that last one up.
You’ll notice that there is no sign of “A/C” on that list. I cannot imagine how boiling that black Benz would be without it, so I’m guessing this one got some locally-installed system at some point. There are also these wheel opening chrome surrounds – a bit too wannabe W112 for my taste. But otherwise, this car looks pretty stock, especially for a 50-year-old Thai Fintail.
I’m a huge fan of the W111/W112s, but I confess that these lesser Heckflosse have always seemed a bit odd to me, and it’s all about that front end. I don’t know why Mercedes thought it was a good idea (even just for fun) to graft the face of the previous generation Pontoons onto the Fintail’s kisser. This really doesn’t work at all, making the W110 appear taller and narrower than it ought to. Pontoon-style round headlamps were perched high on the fenders and given a thick chrome surround. This, coupled with the rear fins, was still OK when the 190 / 190 D arrived in 1961, but it started looking dated very soon after that.
But the W110 was only dated on the outside. On the technical side, the cars were literally built like tanks. The low-pivot swing axle was tamer than earlier models’ “full swing” rear end, which had a naughty reputation for twerking in fast corners. The engine was bulletproof, but barley adequate power-wise. They were not cheap cars – though far removed from the 2-door / W112 a super-premium territory, the W110 sat just below the W111 saloons. But as always, it’s hard to understand these things without context. So we find ourselves yet again on the French market, in the fall of 1962, to see what the W110 had to face within its price range.
Tough crowd, this – as always with this family / lower executive segment. If I were to write this for a French audience, I would also include a “CV” column for the fiscal horsepower. Cars had to pay a yearly tax, which was calculated according to a formula that chiefly included engine displacement. The tax was progressively higher, becoming pretty significant above the 10CV level (around 1800cc) and very expensive above 15CV (over 2800cc). So the Belgian-built 3.2 litre Rambler, for instance, was relatively cheap to buy, but the yearly tax made it more expensive, in the medium-term, than a 2-litre car. The more modest Mercedes 190 was an 11CV car, so it didn’t suffer from that problem. But in the French clientele’s mind, this put the W110 in the same category as the Citroën DS 19. And you could buy the absolute top-of-the-line Prestige model, complete with leather seats and built-in radiotelephone, for a fistful of Francs less than the staid Stuttgarter.
If solidity and reliability are top of the wishlist, how about the Volvo?
The 200 is of course a better car than the 190 – bigger engine, better-looking fins that had to be hand-finished and all that. The addition of the 230, a 6-cyl. stuffed under a 4-cyl car’s hood, was a return to the 219 Pontoon (W105) concept. But the second generation W110s were also notable for their delightful Universal wagons, built in Belgium by IMA from late 1964, initially on the 190. Most Universals were based on the 200 / 200 D, but some were also made on the 6-cyl. W110. Except for the 190 versions, these wagons were equipped with the hydro-pneumatic compensating spring at the rear axle, which was also fitted to late-model W111s. The Universal’s dimensions were identical to its saloon counterparts, except for a 3cm increase in height due to its 15” wheels.
The good people over at the IMA (Importation de Moteurs et d’Automobiles) works, located halfway between Antwerp and Brussels, also made some 230 S W111 wagons along the way. Judging by the photo above, the last Fintail wagon – a 230 S – only made it out the factory in January 1969, over a year after the W111 saloon had vacated Sindelfingen’s assembly lines. Also according to this picture, IMA claim to have made 2754 Fintail Universals altogether, including about 300 of the W111 variety. Afterwards, IMA produced the wagon version of the Strich Acht (W114-W115) until 1973. They switched to assembling Saab 99s until the factory closed down in 1978.
“Pre-Universal” Mercedes 190 wagons by Meisen (top) and Binz – hand-made, handfuls made.
Of course, IMA weren’t the only game in town. Small runs of passenger wagons, panel wagons, ambulances or hearses were made by various European coachbuilders using the same W110 professional chassis IMA used. These could be ordered with a standard or a stretched (310cm) wheelbase. As if the Fintail needed yet more wheelbase variations…
Which brings us to the “W110 Lang” 7-seater limousine (200 D or 230), on the gargantuan 338cm wheelbase. Sometimes called Pullman, it was made by German coachbuilder Binz and initially proposed only for certain export markets, starting in late 1965; in 1967, the limo became a full member of the W110 European range, alongside the saloon and the Universal. Production numbers are unknown – estimates hover around a couple hundred units. Short-faced, long-arsed and far from glamorous, these Pullman limousines are doubtless the ugliest sleds in all Fintaildom.
Much as I don’t like the front end, the rest of this M-B 200 is right up my alley. The generously panoramic greenhouse, the C-pillar vents (taken from the W111), the roomy trunk and those famous fins – I like them all. Yes, even the fins. I know it’s a controversial thing for some, but these are hardly ’59 Chevy Batwing-crazy. Besides, think back to when the Heckflosse was launched, in 1959: rear ends were plenty pointy, even in old Europe. If I went Biblical and said: “Let he who was ever without fin cast the first stone,” there’d be a few pebbles from Jaguar and VW, but precious few others.
Besides, the removal of all chrome accents on the fins in these later W110s made those even more discreet and, to my eyes, desirable. My fantasy Fintail would have the 220’s front end, the 300’s engine and the 200’s simpler tail. And black, just like our feature car. It’s the only colour that really suits this car’s formal look. Brighter colours are best left to the 2-door variants.
As a result, there is something delightfully sinister about these. They are so numerous in films of the period – especially Cold War spy thrillers set in Mitteleuropa, like Funeral in Berlin or On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Not a few Fintail saloons were also used as getaway cars in ‘60s films — and in real life. The Mercedes’ modest acceleration was less important than its Panzer-like build quality and reliability, one supposes.
The W110 is everything a classic car should be: evocative and indestructible, familiar yet extraordinary, made in large numbers and exported widely, and superbly put together in the first place. Were it not for that Pontoon face, I would be besotted. But as it is, the Heckflosse I really want is probably the base 220. The rare 230 S wagon is also very tempting, but the saloon’s shape is still unbeatable. And it lurks better, too.
Related posts:
Automotive & Design History: Mercedes-Benz W110/111/112 Fintails – Béla Barényi And The Elusive Pluckenheckflosse, by Don Andreina
CC Outtake: 1966 Heckflosse Reporting For Duty, by Wolfgang
CC For Sale: 1967 Mercedes 230S – Not Cheap Then, Not Cheap Now, by PN
Carshow Capsule: 1966 Mercedes-Benz 230 Universal – Is This The First Mercedes Estate?, by Roger Carr
Curbside Classic: 1966 Mercedes 250SE Cabriolet (W111) – The Classiest Mercedes Of Them All?, by PN
Car Show Outtake: 1965 Mercedes-Benz 220 SE Cabriolet (W111) – Lass Die Guten Zeiten Rollen, by Johannes Deutsch
A school friends parents had one of these a 190D a slow car in 70s NZ our hilly terrain certainly showed its lack of power, it got along ok on flat going it wasnt very quiet or very comfortable, Ive owned and driven several of its rivals, my favourite would be the Vauxhall but the 65 3.3 model, those were fast or the MK3 Zodiac
That’s an excellent article putting all these variants together. I still think the Heckflosse is the car where they got everything right, including the grille.
And this related read: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-outtake/cc-outtake-1966-heckflosse-reporting-for-duty/
Entschuldige Wolfgang! I never found that article when I searched the site for Fintail-related posts. And i must have missed it when it came the first time round. I’ll add it to the Related posts section.
Great yin-yang between your white US-spec Diesel and this black RHD petrol version, too.
High-quality (just like the car) and comprehensive, as always. Merci!
….and if I find some of that old air cooled machinery from Deutschland, I’ll change my name in Johannes Deutz.
Consider me a fan. I am not a big Mercedes guy, but I would rock one like this. For the record I love everything about this one, from the paint color to the front end.
I also love your comparison chart. In the US where Mercedes sold from Studebaker dealers, the Lark was a “regular” sedan while the Benz was the expensive exotic. In France it seemed to be the opposite.
But just when did people start calling Mercedes by the nickname “Merc”? This never made sense to me for two reasons. First, Mercedes uses a soft C where Merc implies a hard one. (Unless in this usage it is pronounced Merss, something I have never heard any English-speaker say.) The second is that everyone over 50 in the US knows that Merc is short for Mercury. My father always identified his first car as a 47 Merc (which sounds way cooler than saying 47 Mercury). If there is a need for a 4 letter short name for the car, they give you one in “Benz”. Sorry, this will be my only “nails on a chalkboard” rant for the day.
Oh, you never know, you know. Your day is young, and there’s much out there that might yet appear here to make you rant again.
Aussies have always said “merk”, as I think certain strata of the English have, for eg “Some burk with a smirk in a Merc” (trans: a foolish personage who is smiling slightly without parting the lips in a salacious fashion whilst driving a product of Mercedes-Benz.”)
Properly old Aussies, however, mean “Mercury” by the word “Merc”, as they’ve not been an item here since not long after the WW2, but they’re getting thin on the ground. The speakers, I mean.
Yes, well, if I had my way anyone shortening the name of any vehicle would be hung, drawn and quartered ASAP. (oops, I mean, As Soon As Possible!).
See, to my ears, anyone saying Stang or Cuda sounds like a moron but hey, 300 million Americans can’t all be wrong, right?
Make that 299,999,999 as I’ve yet to use “Stang”, “Cuda”, or even “Chevy”. And JP is right; Merc is for Mercury due to the phonetics of it all. 🙂
The Brits and other english speakers in general use Merc for Mercedes as well. Mercury just didn’t get around as far in the world as Mercedes did. To get technical about pronunciation, Mercedes doesn’t have an “s” sounding C in the fourth position either in its native language, but a “ts” sound.
And to address SimonAlberta, every few years, about 150-160 million Americans are clearly wrong, so they could certainly all be wrong about some other things as well 🙂
This intrigues me, although the prevalence of Mercury around the planet is a good point. Ford just squandered a good thing, didn’t they? 🙂
Now, here’s where I am turning to being serious and truly seeking to understand. All my life I’ve heard that car pronounced as “Mur-say-dees”. It could be interpreted as a soft c as Jim states, so seeing Merc for Mercedes, with the pronunciation I’ve heard for 40+ years, is like, just, wrong. From what you are saying is it more “Merts-ay-dees”? But I’m wanting to say I have heard it pronounced as “Murs-uh-dees” or might it be “Merts-uh-dees?”
Yeah, perhaps I’m in the minority. That wouldn’t be the first time.
Language is fascinating. For a country that is an offshoot of Britain is so many ways, I’ve always been curious to know how American English has migrated just far enough from British English. The way the chemical element “Al” is pronounced to the “u” in color, neighbor, etc. Might it be the German influence as well as the influences of all the other places in which a high number of immigrants originated? It is a real curiosity.
I certainly don’t disagree about so many Americans being wrong periodically. But that is a beer infused conversation waiting to happen.
I’m always up for a beer, thanks for the invite. But we can find other things to talk about I’m sure.
In German it’s more like “Mare-tsay-des”. The last syllable is faster than for example in “Deez nuts” and not as flat on the “e”. More like an “ae” combo as in “aesthetic”
Or here you go…there is a YouTube for that:
https://youtu.be/mB5CKXoqJLY
Jason, while the heritage is often said to be British, the reality is that most of our American ancestors came over from German speaking countries, even though the colonial ruler was England. Many advocated that German be our national language, both from usage and to further break away from Colonial rule, or at least things be printed in German as well as English, much like we see with things in both English and Spanish.
The German pronunciation of Mercedes is closer to “Mertz aye dees” and to my ears, does not support Merc as a slang version. But, then again, English speakers love to mispronounce foreign names by Anglicizing them, as people from Paris, Munich (Munchen), and a few other cities can attest.
So Mercedes should be shortened to Maertz then perhaps? “Merc” still ain’t got nuttin ta do wid it, pardner. 🙂
Mildly amusing Bible pun there, so let me who is without grin cast the first moan. (Come on, that’s not bad for 11.52pm).
As ever with the Heckfloosie, I feel it is a car I am duty-bound to admire, but I can’t rise to liking them much. They have ugliness spilling all over the place, whether it’s the too-tall Faberge egg lights, the too dour Ponton-style ones, the strange-shaped rear arches or just the general combined unease of Euro-restraint that’s been messily slathered with US addenda and chromium. Oh, and the dash, one of the ugliest &most parsimonious-looking little instrument pods ever fitted to a posh car. Impractical in use, too.
I haven’t finished. They’re also not much joy in fahren ’em either, with heavy, vague steering, a clutzoid gearchange and very little torque at low revs (in the 6). They’re feel a lot better up and speeding, when they’ll cruise at 80mph+ far easier and more stably than cars from years later. Plenty of wind roar, but.
I still haven’t finished. Built like tanks they may have been, but if tanks rusted as fast as these did, no-one would ever finish a battle on a wet field. The drivers and gunners would just fall through the holes and have to surrender. The engines are much over-rated, simply awful as fours, and revvy but thirsty as sixes, and in any form, producing much more sound than fury. Moreover, the idea that they could do mega miles is only true in countries with no police, because beyond 90K or so they began to produce enough smoke to obscure the sun. That’ll get you puled over in most places.
I feel finished now.
The Thai one you have found here is in fine fettle, but has also been finely fettled, methinks. Note the very professionally-done twin exhaust outlets, suggesting an engine more interesting than anything Mercedes ever saw fit to fit. Two Nissan diesel sixes this time, perhaps? Or hopefully the V8 the heavy lumpenfin always needed?
Great little excursus, as per usual Prof T. If I must drive away in something from today’s selection, the Universal wagons are really nice. But please, not a 190D automatic (an actual driveline combo available, at least on sedans) – the red flag man walking in front would always arrive several hours before me at my destination and be demanding overtime.
You have put your finger (and perhaps other anatomical parts) very squarely on all the Heckflosse’s shortcomings. Every car, like every person, has them, and you’ve spared nothing in a full-on take down. Brutally honest. But you forgot the ridiculous little 13″ wheels and tires, which made them look like they had their feet bound, Chinese style. Or some sort of congenital issue down there.
I am utterly torn about these cars, as I too am quite aware of their shortcomings but these are of course are largely balanced by their many virtues. I place packaging very highly, and these are superbly roomy and comfortable, especially for the times. The splendid high thrones in front make for an unparalleled driving position with almost infinite visibility. The seating for passengers is also excellent, given the times. It was a huge improvement over the rather tight pontoon cars, and anything else on the market at the time, given their modest 108″ wheelbase. Meaning less than a Falcon.
And they rode very well indeed, with their supple fully independent suspensions front and rear. The new low-pivot rear suspension was a big improvement, and hardly made one aware of its swing axle roots. Again, what are you going to compare it with in this regard at the time?
The brakes were pretty good for drums, but obviously MB should have just put discs and proper 14″ wheels on them.
The steering, like all MB steering until the modern era, could be dull in some circumstances, but it felt serene at 80+ mph, inspiring great confidence. Which clearly was their priority.
The styling was a bit overdone, but then so was a lot of styling in the late 50s. Why they didn’t just graft on the rounded rear fenders of the coupe/cabrio after 1962 is a good question. Actually not, as it would have made MB look like they were fixing a mistake. MB didn’t make mistakes!
Yes, the engines weren’t perfect, but what engines were in 1959? The fours were uninspiring, but rugged and did the job. The sixes should have had a 2.5 L version from the get-go, but you know Europe and their displacement incentives at the time.
The bottom line is this: it seems to me you’re quite accurately describing the issues/driving experience/ownership experience with these cars in their later years, like in the late 60s and 70s. Yes, they were looking rather out of date by then, and the sixes were blowing smoke, and they were rusting. But that doesn’t quite describe what they were like in 1959, when they first arrived. I was a boy of 6 at the time in Austria, and their arrival was greeted like the second coming. It was a huge deal, and realistically, there was very, very little on the market that could hope to compete with them.
The Citroen had certain remarkable features, but then…. And I could go on. There really was a reason these cars helped propel Mercedes much higher in the ranks of the market at the time, especially in the US, where they basically blew Jaguar out of the water with their melting out-of date blobs that had even worse mechanical, rust and reliability issues.
And let’s not forget that these cars were the basis of the W108/109 cars, that resolved most of the shortcomings of the fintails.
Agreed on all points, (including that silly wheel size). I’ll never really love the aesthetics much, but I would absolutely love to drive an immaculate 220SE automatic with power steering, as I only ever thrashed along in an excellent but then-28y.o. 220S manual. Then it would be possible to focus on the many virtues you list, undistracted by the clumsiness of very average ’50’s gears and steering, the two features that are not even good examples from their time. And, yes, there’s nothing at all with the combination of comfort, speedy stability, smoothness, go – the poor Cit had none – and for most conditions, handling, from that time. I have to say that even the power drums were really excellent too.
I do maintain that, for the price, they should have been better mechanically. US engineering had no problem making V8’s and sixes that were still in rude health at 90K miles. The Mercedes mechanic I dealt with all that time ago said 90-100K was their limit before major work, and he was a fanboi.
Keep in mind that big American engines generally loafed through life, which was hardly the case with a MB six. And actually, in the US back then, a car was generally considered worn out by 100k miles, if it even made it that far. There were exceptions if very meticulously maintained.
We used to stay away from older used cars that had more than about 75k miles on the odometer.
Of course a Cadillac or big Chrysler or such was more likely to be still in reasonably decent shape at those mileages, due to less stress and better maintenance than a cheap smaller car like a Falcon.
A big issue was where and how it was used. Cars in areas of cold winters that were often driven short distances (city driving) and commonly not fully warmed up much could wear an engine out in 60-70k miles readily. A car in a mild climate that got a lot of highway miles could rack up much more mileage before going south. That might explain your perception of them in Australia.
I saw a lot of really clapped out and rusted out cars in the upper Midwest at 7-10 years old and often with well less than 100k miles on them. Totally shot, or close to it. We might pay $35-50 for one if desperate (and poor) enough, knowing it might blow up anytime.
Terrific article…thanks!
I’m surprised you didn’t notice the dual exhaust pipes. This is no genuine four cylinder 200, given all the other upgrades it has received. I’m quite certain the wheels are 14″ at least, and have meaty low-aspect ratio tires on them, undoubtedly from a later W108 or so. This is more like a poorer man’s not-quite Grosser 600.
I do wonder what’s under its hood.
If I were to write this for a French audience, I would also include a “CV” column for the fiscal horsepower.
But you obviously are, even if it is in English, given your comparison charts of the French market (in francs, no less) in this and other posts. 🙂
These charts make for a curious glimpse at a time and place very far removed from the 90% or so of our readers who are in North America, but it reflects a market profoundly different than the US market, where these dull mainstream American sedans like this Studebaker or Rambler and the Mercury in your previous post would never ever cross the minds of a potential Mercedes client. I suspect a significant percentage of our readers barely know some of the more obscure cars in them, never mind what a franc was worth back then.
The reality is that the US, a huge and very important market for Mercedes, was very much different than the French or any European market. Mercedes made great inroads in the US in the 60s starting with these fintail cars, essentially kicking Jaguar’s arse out of the #1 spot for imported luxury cars.
This is a whole other story, and a critical one for the enormous growth and success of Mercedes as the dominant global premium brand, and perhaps one of these days I will write a post focusing on that key chapter these cars played in that.
Sorry for replying so late. You make very valid points, but I do have a few of my own.
– This is a post about a European car, so I think it’s not illogical to see it within a European context. Finding price info on a wide array of cars, to illustrate how the CC fared by comparison, is not easy. I have some French market data at my disposal, so I use that. The interesting thing about that market by the ’50s was the near absence of domestically-made luxury cars, which puts things in better perspective, IMHO, than if there were significant domestic competition (e.g. UK or US).
– This is also a post about an Asian market car. And AFAIK, the African and Asia-Pacific markets would resemble the European (as opposed to American) market in terms of pricing. The big difference is the minuscule size of the individual markets compared to Western Europe.
– This highlight the uniqueness of the US market, as Mercedes prices were comparatively higher there. But American cars in Europe were certainly not cheap either, which might come as a surprise because they are cheap in the US. The W110 rubbed shoulders with Falcons and Corvairs, which, from a purely size / performance perspective, is exactly where it should be.
The 190 was no luxury saloon. It was more expensive in the US than a Studebaker Lark for sure, but still not in Cadillac / Jaguar territory. I don’t know how many W110s were sold in North America, but I bet the W111 sold a lot better.
– Francs or dollars don’t matter at all. Who cares what those figures actually meant in 1963? This is just to give a scale.
I wasn’t being critical, I just couldn’t resist riffing on that one line of yours “If I were to write this for French audience…” 🙂
It’s always interesting for at least some of us to have an insight into how different various European markets were from the American one. Speaking of here’s some US market prices from 1963 (all 4 door sedans):
Studebaker Lark 6: $2040
Chevrolet Impala: $2661
Buick LeSabre; $3044
Mercedes 190: $3844
Buick Wildcat: $3871
Chrysler New Yorker: $3981
Buick Electra 225: $4051
Mercedes 220S: $4818
Jaguar 3.8 Mk II $4890
Mercedes 220SE $5187
Cadillac Series 62 $5214
Imperial Southampton $5343
Cadillac deVille $5633
Lincoln Continental $6270
Cadillac 60 Special $6366
Jaguar Mk X $6990
Mercedes 300SE (W112) $8662
Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III $16665
These are just a sampling of the wide spectrum to help put the Mercedes fintails into perspective. The 190 was not cheap, but not quite full luxury class either. The same as a Chrysler New Yorker, which was an almost-luxury class car.
The 220 certainly was. But they tended to appeal to quite different buyers, especially the 190. It appealed primarily to German expats and engineering types who were a bit obsessive about its quality and engineering.
The 220S/SE appealed to the same sorts, but better heeled ones, as well as an increasing number of true luxury car buyers who saw the Mercedes as something more sophisticated and chic and prestigious than just another Cadillac or such, which were losing their cachet because they were becoming affordable to a rapidly increasing number of Americans die to real rising incomes.
As to the ratio of 190/200s vs 220s, I’d say it was roughly 40/60; maybe 35/65. But that’s observational. I wish I had stats from then.
We had two neighbors on our block in Iowa City with black 220SEs: one was an older German expat who was the head of the hydraulics department at the university; his wife drove a Studebaker Daytona coupe. The other was a doctor. His wife drove a big American station wagon for the kids. And he had a Model A. But I was surprised that there were two on our block, and not a single Cadillac. This was around 1962-1964.
The 300SE was absurdly expensive, and extremely rare, although I remember seeing one or two while in New York in 1964. For the truly well-heeled.
FWIW, I just found a currency converter that says that the 190s 1963 price of 19,100 francs was equivalent to $3900 USD in 1963. Which is almost exactly the same as its price in the US ($3844).
Just some random musings on the subject from a US perspective.
Such fine formal design values, I measure all Mercs against these, which were of course the models I first knew growing up. Thanks for such a comprehensive article as always.
This is quite a nostalgic article for me. (BTW – in the dash-o-rama, the supposedly 200 D should show the preheater indicator from this angle….unless my memory is wrong, that is a gas car dashboard) A great friend’s father had one of these in the ’70s. It was a ’67 200, gas powered, just like this one (other than being white or ivory and left hand drive). The car was tremendously comfortable (or I was so much smaller…both are true). It had power steering and if I remember correctly a floor shift. I distinctly remember the PS because it broke down once and he was quite uncomfortable parking the car. Around these parts it was a prestige car. Of course, not like a 111, but those were so thin in the ground it didn’t matter. Lots of 110 190 D were used here as taxis, but the combination of bad maintenance and less than stellar repairing when crashed, along with the famous rotting, made them less durable than the ’50s 190 D that were driven up to 1.5 million km. It was typical of these and the /8 to rot around the rear wheelwells and below the rear window, so their tails would appear to be hanging down. And it was.
He went on to become a Diesel fan, his next car was a ’69 280 S, and he swapped the 6 cyl for a 240D engine. A tree would be faster. It was superseded by a ’78 or so 116, a 280S also. Now that was a car….then he had an Opel Rekord, also with a Mercedes engine. In the middle there had been an old Capri, and then there was an Isuzu Gemini Diesel, and several other cars that didn’t make any dent on my memory.
But that 110 was a very nice car.
I enjoyed your very comprehensive write-up. It does remind me of a smaller Grosser. Could call it the Subtler. Handsome car. One of the few cars I like with fins.
In the movie “Marathon Man”, was this the car the old Nazi was driving while the angry Jewish man chased him in a big Chevy before a fiery crash? It looks familiar to me but I haven’t seen it in a long time. (Childhood favorite; weird kid I was)
Yes, it was…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3neQZqFP3M
I still prefer mine definistrated. What a face, though.
A little late here, but I actually had the opportunity to drive both a friend’s parents’ 190 Fintail (gasoline, 4 on the tree) and my parents’ Volvo 122S, as well as my own 122S, which was my first car. Both cars were fairly common in my in California college town in the mid-sixties, though I think the Volvo outsold the Fintail about 5-1, mostly price but also because Mercedes had a reputation as slightly ostentatious. Anyway, the driving experience could not have been more different … the Volvo was far quicker, sharper handling, and overall sportier. But the Mercedes was roomier and more comfortable, both seats and ride. Even as a pre-teen, years before I drove either car, I was amazed that the 190 had 13” wheels, compared to the Volvo’s or even a Beetle’s 15 inchers, though admittedly most big American cars were running 14’s by then. Of the cars on the French market comparison list, I’d take the Giulia, no question.
My only experience in a Mercedes was with a ’63 220 sedan in the 80’s.
My dad bought the car non-running. He put a camshaft in it and got it going. The body looked as if it’d been painted with a broom. The MB-tex interior was ripped to hell. It smoked in every gear when shifting
But it was utterly reliable. Build like a tank. And drove better (other than brakes) than my then-new ’85 Tempo.
The neatest features on old Mercedes Benzes is the horns. Those super loud Bosch disc horns are the best. Those horns were made to be heard at very high speeds and really call your attention. Not like those stupid weak sounding high pitched horns used on all cars today. I swapped out the horrible single note horn on my ’16 Jetta with a set of nos Bosch disc horns that I wired in. They’re like 110 decibels up close! When I’m doing 90 or 100mph on the freeway those horns command immediate attention when necessary.
I knew a truck driver who had a locomotive horn on his rig. It was crazy-loud.
My old Ford makes the “honk” sound.
My old Toyota makes the “meep” sound.
The “meep” sound is like a friendly Canadian: “Um, excuse me, do you mind very much if I may suggest moving along?”
The “honk” sound is very American: “Move, mother******, or I’ll rip off your head and **** in your dead skull!”
Nice to have a choice I suppose.
We had a ’60 220 SE (black with red leather) while going through our Teutonic phase in the early ’70s and would have to agree with Justy and Paul’s + and – opinion of these cars. A friend had a ’65 silver/red 300SEL and THAT was the ’60’s Benz to have imo, that car’s big 6 was very different in character to the undersized but tough engines in the 200/220 series, and it was just a wonderful automobile, at least when the air suspension worked properly ($$$$!).
Mercedes were extremely rare in the small towns of my youth, though a dentist who was a bit of an iconoclast drove a rusty, smoking W110 190D for years. For unsophisticated kids, it compared on par with ’58-’62 Rambler Classic sixes in equally lousy condition.