The Mercedes W111 Fintail

By Bernd S. Koehling

The six-cylinder W111 sedan followed in 1959 the successful ponton Mercedes and was the first development with a keen eye on safety. It was also the first Mercedes that was specifically designed with the export business in mind.

If you have an interest in one of these nice, comfortable sedans, this e-book tells its full story. Recently revised it
- covers the development and history of the 220b/230 sedans
- comes with a comprehensive Buyer's Guide
- explains their Chassis Number and Data-Card in great detail
- looks at their price developments until November 2016
- offers superb recent non-Daimler AG photography that also includes pictures of the suspension

The author Bernd S. Koehling has over 25 Mercedes books and e-books to his credit. They cover cars from the 1947 170V to the 2012 SL R231.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bernd S. Koehling
• Release date: Nov 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466144118

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

Book preview

MERCEDES - BENZ

The Mercedes W111 Fintail

220b, 220S, 220SE, 230S

1959 – 1968

By Bernd S. Koehling

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2015 Bernd S. Koehling

All rights reserved

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CONTENT

Foreword

The Cars

220b, S, SE/230S W111 (1959 – 1968)

Developing the six-cylinder fintail

The technical aspects

New safety features

The 220 series

The US market

The 230S

The racing history

The coachbuilders

The sales performance

Experiencing the 220S

Technical chapters

The W111 VIN explained

The W111 data card

What is my car worth

W111 Buyer’s Guide

The paint options

The interior color options

Technical specifications

Annual production figures of each model

Safety guru Béla Barényi

About the author

One last thing

FOREWORD

First of all I would like to thank you for having purchased this book and I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It is part of an e-book series that covers all cars produced by Daimler-Benz during the 1950s and 1960s.

The ponton models had been a great commercial success and in order to improve sales further, one focus of the Daimler-Benz executive board was the increase of export sales. The biggest market was of course North America and it was agreed that the new models needed to have more appeal to customers in the new world. Thus the fintail was born. As it turned out, the styling department around Karl Wilfert had already second thoughts about their new design before the cars were even launched, but it was too late. Nevertheless the cars were well received inside and outside of Europe. They were a further testament to the company's mantra that the best is just good enough, or as the editor of a Swiss automotive magazine once wrote: "They just don't know, how to build bad cars".

Not so well received though was the concept of one-body-fits-all design strategy. People balked at the idea to have an expensive six-cylinder car in their garage that looks very similar to its cheaper four-cylinder cousin. The owner of a 190D did not mind of course to drive a car with the same interior and trunk space as the much more expensive 220SE or even 300SE.

The W111 models were the first cars that were from the beginning designed with Béla Barényi's safety concept in mind. As there was still very little experience with crumple zones in the real world it was agreed with the local police that whenever there would be an accident with a Mercedes fintail involved, engineers from Daimler-Benz would be called to the scene in order to study the cars, so that the safety system could be refined further. At the end, plenty of these cars would be bought by the company, so that they could be studied more thoroughly.

After the success of the 300SL and 190SL in the North American market, the W111 was the first serious attempt by Daimler-Benz to develop this market further. It was initially a very rough and very costly attempt, but at the end it paid off.

This e-book has been completely revised with more chapters added. The W111 chassis number and data card are explained in great detail, a buyer’s guide is now included and the recent price developments (now until November 2016) are evaluated. Another chapter covers the different paint and interior color options. The engines are explained in more detail and the technical side has been extended with more photos of the suspension added.

Some of you have also asked me, whether it is possible to include more information about the men that were responsible for all these wonderful cars. This e-book has that is why a chapter added, that covers the career of Béla Barényi in Daimler-Benz. Other books cover people like Nallinger, Uhlenhaut, Wilfert or Hoffman. As this book is more about cars, please accept my apology that this cannot be a full blown biography of B. Barényi.

August 2015

Bernd S. Koehling

MB 220b W111/I (1959 – 1965)

MB 220Sb W111/II (1959 – 1965)

MB 220SEb W111/III (1959 – 1965)

MB 230S W111/IA (1965 – 1968)

Developing the six-cylinder fintail

When development for the ponton model started, management decided to launch the four-cylinder car first in order to slowly prepare its somewhat traditionally minded customers for the dawn of a new era. This time it was the other way around. The executive cars came first.

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On an unspecified day in 1956, Prof. Nallinger, visionary chief engineer and member of the executive board, called into his office Rudolf Uhlenhaut (head of passenger car development), Karl Wilfert (head of body development) and Josef Müller (head of engine development). They needed to discuss the ponton successor, he said. Two things had been decided upon prior to this meeting: the dimensions of the passenger cell (larger) and the time of the launch (autumn 1959). Everything else, he said, he wanted to leave up to them. As the ponton engines were fairly modern, there was not too much to do for Josef Müller, but Karl Wilfert knew that the new car had to cater to different markets, as export was a high priority of the management board. He and his team had quite a job ahead.

Catering to different markets meant, tradition alone would not do anymore. It had to be combined with fashion. Fashion in the late 1950s was on one hand the exuberance of American icons such as Cadillac in 1958/1959 or Lincoln in 1957. On the other hand it was the more pragmatic, trapez-line oriented approach of Italian designers such as Pininfarina, of whom Wilfert was known to be a great admirer.

Pininfarina's ideas of modern design could be found in the French Peugeot 404 and the British Austin A55 for example. Wilfert and members of his small styling team of just 53 colleagues met Pininfarina on several occasions, they also flew to the US in order to study more closely American design ideas. After plenty of internal arguments, Wilfert was famous and almost feared for, his styling team with young Paul Bracq and Bracq’s superior Friedrich Geiger came up with a proposal that did not only incorporate hints of American styling preferences but it also had sufficient traditional elements incorporated that even a person not interested in cars at all, would immediately recognize the car as a Mercedes.

Geiger had joined Daimler-Benz in 1933 and had been responsible for the designs of two iconic models: the 500K special roadster (at that time he was just 27 years old) and the 300SL. As design was always a team work in Daimler-Benz, he can be credited for other models such as the W111, W110, W113 and R107, many of them were developed together with his colleague Bracq, who was hired by Wilfert in 1957. Bracq can be credited for the famous W113 pagoda roof, much of the W111 styling and the W114/115. He left Daimler-Benz in 1967 to become later in 1970 head of design at BMW.

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