The Mercedes 300 and 300S Series
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About this ebook
Both the 300 Adenauer and 300S surprised everyone, when they were introduced in 1951. Nobody had expected Daimler-Benz to launch two brand new luxury cars just six years after WWII. This 220-page book, updated in April 2018, tells these cars’ story and comes with superb recent non-Daimler AG color photography; this includes pictures of the suspension. These are some of the topics covered:
•The development of the 300 Adenauer
•The technical aspects
•The 300, b, c and d models
•The 300 and the Rally Monte Carlo
•The 300S and 300Sc
•The coachbuilders
•Konrad Adenauer and his six 300 models
•Experiencing a 300S Roadster
•The chassis number explained
•The data card explained
•Technical specifications
This guide ends with a free book offer. Enjoy!
With over 25 books and e-books written about Mercedes-Benz cars, Bernd S. Koehling has proven to be an authority on the brand. Those books cover cars from the 1936 170V to the 2012 SL R231.
Bernd S. Koehling
With over 25 books and e-books written about Mercedes-Benz cars, Bernd S. Koehling has proven to be an authority on the brand. Those books cover cars from the 1947 170V to the 2012 SL R231. Bernd has been involved in the Mercedes scene since the early 1970s, when he restored his first 170 Cabrio B. Since then he has not only owned many classic Mercedes including a 220S, 300d Adenauer, 200D, 250SE, 280SE coupe 3.5, 300SEL, 350SL, 280E, 450SE, SLK230, he has also gained a wealth of knowledge and experience, which he shares with his readers in his books. Bernd has always considered Mercedes one of his favorite car manufacturers and has driven almost all Mercedes models built since the 1950s. His other weakness revolves around British cars, here especially Jaguar and Alvis. If you would like to know more about Bernd's books or want to read his blog with selected Mercedes stories, why don't you visit his website: benz-books.com
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Book preview
The Mercedes 300 and 300S Series - Bernd S. Koehling
MERCEDES-BENZ
The Mercedes 300 and 300S series
From the 300 W186 Sedan
to the 300Sc W188 Roadster
1951 – 1962
Author Bernd S. Koehling
Editor: Bevan J. Walsh
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2018 Bernd S. Koehling
All rights reserved
CONTENT
Foreword
The Cars
300 W186/W189 (1951 – 1962)
Gold-plating the Mercedes name again
The 300
The equipment of the 300
The 300b and c
The 300d Sedan and Cabriolet
The sales performance
The coachbuilders
The 300 and the Rally Monte Carlo
Adenauer and the 300
300S, Sc W188 (1951 – 1958)
Developing a 540K successor
The 300S
The 300Sc
The coachbuilder
Experiencing a 300S Roadster
Technical chapters
The chassis number explained
The data card explained
Technical specifications 300
Technical specifications 300S
Performance data 300, 300s
Power and torque curves 300, 300S
Production history 300
Production history 300S
About the author
Other books by the author
Free book offer
FOREWORD
First, I would like to thank you for having purchased this book. I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It is part of a series that covers all cars produced by Daimler-Benz during the 1950s and 1960s.
The early 1950s was still a difficult time for Daimler-Benz, although it was a vastly different scenario to the late 1940s in Europe. The Marshall Plan (officially called the European Recovery Program or ERP) and in Germany the currency reform had a huge impact on the restructuring efforts and the general morale of the people. Although in the early 1950s most of the physical manufacturing capability was still not yet rebuilt, the technological capability and skill of the worker and engineer was intact.
Launching in quick succession within a single year the executive 220, the luxurious 300 and as one might call it, the successor to the 540K: the 300S, was quite an achievement just six years after the war. But those cars were needed to slowly start to develop the export business again. They were needed, as Daimler-Benz CEO Wilhelm Haspel already said in 1947: to have a vehicle that gold-plates the name Mercedes-Benz again
. Participating in European Motor Shows, although done with a certain amount of apprehension, was a first and vital step towards re-establishing the image of Daimler-Benz as one of the world's premier automotive companies.
It is doubtful that Daimler-Benz made much money with the 300 series, the Mercedes Adenauer, as it is known by so many people, or with the 300S models. But cars like them were part of the reason, why Road & Track once wrote: ...if you judge all the cars in the world on the basis of engineering, construction integrity, reliability and the degree of perfection with which they fill their intended function, then the ten best cars in the world are probably all built by Mercedes Benz.
This guide explains in detail the chassis number and data card, which was naturally in the early 1950s still not very detailed. That is why it also explains an early 1960s data card that a late 300d would have been equipped with.
Throughout this book, figures in Deutschmarks are given with a corresponding US dollar amount. The latter is quoted at the contemporary exchange rate. If you are interested, this book is also available in a printed version: Further details can be found on my website.
April 2018
Bernd S. Koehling
Gold-plating the name Mercedes again
It was a rainy and chilly morning on the 18th of April 1951. It was the day, the heads of State of France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg met in Paris to sign the treaty that established the European Coal and Steel Community. It was the first step of what was to become many years later the European Union.
Seven days later, just 471 km or 292 miles to the east, Frankfurt in Germany saw its first International Motor Show, which had a couple of interesting highlights in the luxury segment to offer. BMW launched its first automobile after the war, the 501 Sedan, whose design resembled a bit that of the British Austin A40, only larger of course. The 2.0 l six-cylinder engine derived from the pre-war 326 and appeared with its 65 hp a bit of a stretch for a 1,3 ton car. General Motors German subsidiary Opel had again upgraded its bestseller Kapitän, whose front looked similar to that of a Chevrolet from 1947, which was regarded as an advantage. The Opel’s 2.5 l six-cylinder engine’s output was slightly increased from 55 to 58 hp, which was also not too overwhelming for a 1.2 ton vehicle. The price was reduced from DM9,950 to DM9,600 ($2,275). This last move was very short-lived though, because the prices went up again just one year later to DM9,850.
The biggest news came from Daimler-Benz, where two new models, the 220 and 300 caused such a sensation that mounted police had to be called in to control the excited crowd. Especially the 300 was such a prominent statement of German engineering that the public, painfully aware that they would never be able to own that car, relished it as something they
had accomplished. It gave the public the feeling that Germany was finally a nation again that can achieve something.
The car was for the company not just a re-entry of the luxury car segment, it was a quantum leap forward. Already at the end of 1947, CEO Wilhelm Haspel addressed in a meeting the need to have a sports car and a representative car that would be attractive to revive the export business again, saying: "What is missing is a vehicle that gold-plates the name Mercedes-Benz again".
To gold-plate the name Mercedes-Benz again proved more difficult though. The 170V had just been launched as the only and at the same time top of the line car of the company. It was okay for the home market in the early years after the war, but inadequate to boost the export business again. Money for new and costly investments in machinery was not available, so the engineers working under Fritz Nallinger (chief engineer and member of the executive board) tried to find a solution by using existing tools that had survived the bombing raids. The final design of the car was heavily debated internally. So head of styling Hermann Ahrens, who prior to the war had designed the 540K, developed a proposal with softer, flowing fender lines, an absence of running boards and integrated headlamps. It found much praise within the executive board.
Karl Wilfert, head of Body Testing in those days and future Head of Corporate Design had his own ideas of how a modern luxury sedan should look, so he wrote a letter to his Chairman Haspel. He was known and almost feared for his occasional bull-headed behavior, so Haspel, who liked the Ahrens design, decided against talking to Wilfert directly.
He wrote him a letter back instead:
"Regarding the matter of design, I believe that – even if you have fallen in love with this change – you will not contradict me when I say that this resultant object has become disproportionate and therefore decidedly inelegant. In short, there is no sense in wanting to change and modernize to such an extent an object that was created from a different overall design; the result will be a bastard and one should stop continuing such an idea"
End of story.
Three different proposals from the Ahrens team from around 1949-1950. The first two still show independent headlamps. If some of the photos appear smaller, please click on them to have them enlarged. The smaller size of some of them was necessary in order not to exceed the total allowable size limit of this e-book