daimler 1886
Top 10: Greatest-Ever Mercedes Benz Cars
By Henry Biggs
The assembly which can rightly claim to have invented the motorcar has not been having a cloth time of it of late, losing its repute for building seemingly indestructible cars and gaining one for paltry customer service.
However Mercedes seems to be clawing its way out of the doldrums, even if their stated aim of increasing reliability to Toyota levels was a rather sad access on their part. Seemingly keen on filling every on niche they can find, Mercedes is at least doing so with some tolerable models now. Here we take a look at some great Mercedes models from the assembly’s 120 year history.
The beginnings
1886 Benz Unmistakable Motor Car
Typical - you wait for centuries for a petrol powered conveyance and two wrong favour up at once. Incredibly, Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz, both working in south-western Germany, produced automobiles within months of each other. Benz, working in Mannheim, reasonable pipped Daimler and his partner Wilhelm Maybach to the piling, registering the three-wheeled, internal combustion mechanism driven Benz Patent Motorwagon with the apparent office in January 1886. Daimler and Maybach took their model gas engine and fitted it to a stagecoach in Tread 1886. The pair followed this with the great’s first four-wheeled, four-stroke powered horseless stance in 1889. It was two years later before Benz added a fourth circle to his design.
1886 Daimler Motor Carriage
SSK (1928)
Mercedes SSK in the Ralph Lauren Omnium gatherum
Regarded by many as the finest pre-war sportscar ever built, the SSK was as a matter of fact designed by Ferdinand Porsche and was the underlying evolution of the 'S' model line launched two years earlier. The S was itself a shame chassis version of the ‘K’ series cars and employed a supercharged 6.8-litre mechanism. In order to go Grand Prix racing Mercedes needed a smaller, lighter car so they chopped 19 inches out of the chassis to contrive the “Super Sport Kurz”, the last little talk being the German for short. Much lighter than its 2.5 ton predecessors the SSK was acclimatized to devastating effect by greats such as Rudolf Caracciola, endearing numerous competition events including the 1930 Lavish Prix, thanks to a 7.1-litre supercharged mechanism producing 225bhp. The final dummy actually produced 300bhp and had holes drilled in its chassis to relieve the car in an attempt to keep it competitive.
300SL 'Gullwing' (1954)
Loosely based on the thriving 1952 competition car of the same name, the 300SL was convenient as a convertible or a coupe with those now legendary 'gullwing' doors. These were high-priority because of the car’s tubular chassis which ran through where the lower half of the door would be on a example car, making it exceptionally stiff for its day but making entr and exit a feat in gymnastics. It was also the first construction car fitted with fuel injection. The machine-like system from Bosch more than doubled the power of the three-litre even six from 115bhp to 240bhp, making it more influential than the original racer. Around 1400 were made, with the comparable looking 190SL roadster outselling it by approaching eight to one until both were replaced in 1963 by the 230SL.
300SLR (1955)
Stirling Moss and 'Jenks' in the 300SLR on the Mille Miglia
In defiance of the name this bore no relation to either Gullwing or the earlier racecar. It was essentially the 1954 Mercedes W196 Principal Prix car, its straight-eight engine enlarged from 2.5 to three litres and covered with a two-seater roadster assemblage. It was in this form that a 300SLR won what is perhaps still the most famous racecourse victory of all time. With a young British racing driver named Stirling Moss at the position, directed by co-driver Denis ‘Jenks’ Jenkinson, the 300SLR destroyed the flak in the 1955 Mille Miglia, a non-stopover 1000 mile race on buyers roads in Italy. Moss won the issue at a scarcely credible average speediness of 97.96mph. The 300SLR was withdrawn from match when one crashed into spectators at Le Mans in 1955, destruction 82 spectators. The shock of this distress stunned Mercedes, and it withdrew from racing, not to restoring until 1987.
230SL (1963)
Mercedes 230SL 'Pagoda'
Wretched if this list seems rather 'heavy' on SLs (meaning 'Sehr Leicht' or 'Entertainment Light') they can almost all be justifiably regarded as classics. The 1963 paragon was the first to sell in really significant numbers, shifting scarcely 20,000 units between 1963 and 1971, many of them in the American sell. With a 2.3-litre straight-six machine producing 170bhp the 230SL was creditable for 125mph and by using aluminium panels for the boot, bonnet and doors lived up to the 'superficial' bit of its name, at least in part. The car was available with a distinctively styled hardtop which gave be elevated to its nickname of 'Pagoda' SL. The engine was enlarged in 1967 to 2.5-litres to develop the 250SL, which also gained rear disc brakes, and then again a year later for the 280SL, the biggest selling of all three variants.
600 Pullman (1963)
Mercedes 600 Pullman
The 600 series was introduced in 1963 and intended by Mercedes to pose as the pinnacle of automotive engineering. It in fact took two years to put the massive car into building, the first ones being delivered in 1965. It was accessible as a conventional four-door saloon, a four or six-door limousine or even a landaulet with a folding roof over the voyager compartment. The car rode on air suspension to cushion its occupants and an enormously complex hydraulic system powered everything from self-closing doors to adjustable seats and air vents. The car was moved at surprisingly precipitate pace by a 6.3-litre V8. It was in end result until 1981 and famous owner incorporate Chairman Mao, John Lennon, Leonid Brezhnev, Aristotle Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Hugh Hefner and even Elvis.
300SEL 6.3 (1968)
Mercedes 300SEL 6.3
This was the archetypal Q car, developed by gifted Mercedes manipulate Rudolf Uhlenhaut in his spare at intervals and without him revealing his plans to Mercedes bosses who undoubtedly would not have approved. Uhlenhaut took the mammoth 6.3-litre V8 from the Pullman limousine and stuffed it under the bonnet of the 300 series, the latter day alike of the S-Class. Matched to the air suspension, also from the 600, the consequence was a hot rod in a business suit, apparently accomplished to humble contemporary Porsches, cracking 60 in under eight seconds. They also handled well enough for a army of racing versions to be built by tuning unmovable AMG, one of which, fitted with a 6.9-littre endure would hit 60 in 4.2 seconds. It was succeeded in 1975 by the 450SEL 6.9, one of the first cars ever to be tailor-made with anti-lock brakes.
C111 (1969)
Mercedes C111 account breaker
The C111 was a rare model of Mercedes letting its hair down and testing out some little game ideas. The original 1969 standard used a mid-mounted three rotor Wankel rotary machine in an incredibly streamlined fibreglass substance that produced a drag co-efficient of lawful 0.191. Of course being a Mercedes it featured a leather trimmed, air-conditioned shanty and gullwing doors made a welcome advent. The following year it reappeared with a four-rotor, 350bhp Wankel appliance and was reportedly capable of 180mph. Mercedes undisputed against rotary technology and the third iteration of the C111 against a 230bhp straight-five turbodiesel. With it Mercedes bailiwick numerous diesel records, achieving 200mph at the Nardo tainted-speed bowl in Italy in 1978. Mercedes revived the name in 1991 for a procedure going supercar, the C112 but after compelling 700 orders decided to finish off the project.
S-Class (1981)
No round up of outstanding Mercedes models would be complete without reveal of the S-Class, a series that has its roots in the 1956 W180 pigeon-hole and is now in its tenth iteration. Mention S-Type to people however and it is the 1981 W126 go that many will picture, as driven by number one rat JR Ewing. The car replaced the early previously to generation W116 but kept the 6.9-litre representation’s hydro-pneumatic suspension on top of the compass models. The car came with a range of diesel and staid-six petrol engines but the pick of the sort were the powerful V8 models. The car came in want and short wheelbase models and a two-door SEC coupé was also made. The car introduced the everybody to the airbag in 1983 and sold over 800,000 units in its...
1886 Replica of the first car, a Daimler Benz
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