| Today, I was reading an excellent article on Curbside Classic about the legendary Paul Bracq. Bracq had a long career with Mercedes Benz, BMW, Peugeot. He also worked at an independent styling house. Part one covers his time at Mercedes-Benz and part two the rest of his career. I highly recommend this article. Bracq was responsible for one of Mercedes-Benz most elegant designs of the post war period, the W111 Coupe/Cabriolet. He was also integral to the W108/W109, W114/W115 and the W113 Pagoda. Later in his career he also styled the E24 6 Series, another favourite of mine. This article […] In recent years a nice 560SL is going for 3-4x the price of other R107s. They have always been the most valuable of the series, but are they worth the extra money? I would argue they are not event he the best model of the series. They might be the newest, and have the largest engine, but that doesn’t make them the best. The 560SL was sold between 1986 and 1989 in the third ‘series’ of the model. It was a model only sold in the USA, Australia and Japan, primarily because the emissions regulations of these countries had taken […] Pretty much all the buyers guides I read when researching E-Types say that drivers over 6 feet tall should avoid SWB E-Types. This means they are allegedly restricted to the S1 2+2, S2 2+2 and all Series 3 models. I was never a fan of the styling updates to the E-Type as it aged, so was keen on an early car. I also didn’t want an automatic so that left the S1 2+2 manual as my primary choice. There were a few problems with that approach. Firstly, at the time I was buying my car (in the United States), 2+2’s […] Despite the newest examples being almost 30 years old, the Mercedes W126 is still a fairly common sight in Australia. Wheels Magazine awarded it the car of the year in 1981, a controversial choice for such an expensive car. They were popular both with private buyers, and the limo trade who racked up big mileages. 30 years later, good examples still change hands for reasonable money. The W126 still make a great daily-driver – comfortable, safe and reliable. The W126 (along with the R107) was also one of the most commonly private imported models with the shortsighted decision by […] The Jaguar Compact Saloons were a highly successful range of cars that lasted from the mid 50s right through to the end of the 60s. They gave Jaguar the production volume to stay relevant and with their world beating sports cars of the same era are still somewhat responsible for the reputation Jaguar has today. Despite these being the cheapest cars in Jaguar’s range, they have eclipsed their more upmarket and larger siblings in interest, and market value. This makes the full size saloons rather good value, but today the focus is on the compact saloons. The compact saloons encompass […] Mercedes had rather elegant steering wheels in the 1960s. Later, safety concerns led to a change to the padded, plastic type. These were thin style, and from an era where driving gloves were the norm rather than the exception. As was the trend at the time, there was a separate horn ring. There was also an early nod to safety with a padded center. These Mercedes steering wheels were basically the same for all W108, W109, W110, W111, W112, W113, and early W114 and W115. Early cars had a round horn ring, which was changed in the early 60s to […] I was recently introduced to the Rover P5 at a car event, and while it was always a car I was aware of, I had never really examined it in any great detail. The Rover P5 was the higher end car offered by Rover at the time, competing with the likes of the larger Jaguars. As far as I know, it was the P5 that first had the moniker ‘Gentlemans Club on wheels’ and came at a time when Rover was at its very best – the era of the P5, P6 and Range Rover. Sadly, Rover is no […] I recently came across an old price list for Mercedes-Benz in Australia in the mid 60s. They were very expensive cars back then, probably more so than they are today, and even a base model was around double a holden, let alone the range topping (for the saloons) 300SE. These prices are for the standard car, so most buyers would have selected at least some options, further increasing the price. The price list covers the W110, W111 and W108 Saloon cars. The Automatic transmission was an expensive option, close to 10% of the price of the car. Mercedes Benz Passenger […] The headlights on the W108, W109, W111 and W112 Mercedes are all interchangeable, which means many cars are no longer sporting the headlights they left the factory with. They are all based on a design introduced on the 300SL roadster in 1957. The W113, W114/5 and W100 all had similar designs based on this same theme, but those lights will not be covered in this article and they are not interchangeable. The W110 had simpler, round headlights so is also not the focus here. ‘Lichteinheiten’ The standard headlights for these cars were know as ‘Lichteinheiten’. This roughly translates as ‘Light […] Classic Mercedes have always had attractive chrome and painted wheel trims. Most people are very familiar with the ubiquitous one piece Mercedes hub caps that were available on nearly all models from the late 60s to the mid 80s. W111s (and associated models such as the W110, W112, W113, W108, W109) had a few different styles that are now rarely seen. Style 1: 13″ wheels (1959-1965) Cars covered: W111 – all 220s except 220b. W112 – all 300s. These cars were delivered with 13″ wheels, although most cars have been upgraded to 14″ during their lives as it is […] | |
