MERCEDES - BENZ
THE 1950s
The 300 Adenauer W186, W189
1951 – 1962
By Bernd S. Koehling
Copyright 2012 Bernd S. Koehling
Smashwords Edition
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CONTENT
The Cars
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 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 fifties 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 one up-market six-cylinder, a big luxury sedan and as one might call it, the successor to the 540K was quite an achievement just six years after the war. But those cars were needed to slowly start to develop the export business again, which was so few years after the war not an easy undertaking. But participating in European Motor Shows, although done with a certain amount of apprehension, was a first and vital step to re-establish the image of Daimler-Benz as one of the world's premier automotive companies again.
It is doubtful that Daimler-Benz made any money with the 300 series, but cars of the fifties such as the 300 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."
March 2012
Bernd S. Koehling
MB 300b W186 III (1954 – 1955)
MB 300c W186 IV (1955 – 1957)
MB 300d W189 (1957 – 1962)
It was a rainy and chilly morning on the 18th of April 1951. It was the day, where the heads of State of France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg met in Paris to sign the treaty establishing 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 liter six-cylinder engine derived from the pre-war 326 and appeared to be a bit stretched for a 1,3 ton car. General Motors German subsidiary Opel had again upgraded its bestseller Kapitän. The front looked similar to a Chevrolet from 1947, which was regarded as an advantage. The engine output was slightly increased from 55 to 58 hp (all hp in this book refers to DIN, not SAE hp) and the price was reduced from 9,950. - DM to 9,600. - DM (2,275. - US$) at contemporary exchange rates. This last move was very short-lived though, because prices went up just one year later to 9,850. - DM again.
The biggest news came from Daimler-Benz, where two brand 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 the 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: “What is missing is a vehicle that gold-plates the name Mercedes-Benz again” he said.
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 alright for the home market in the early years after the war, but nothing to boost the export business again. Money for new and costly investments in machinery was not available, so the engineers around Fritz Nallinger (chief engineer and member of the executive board) tried to find a way by using up existing stock that had survived the bomb raids. For the chassis and the body they could use what was left of the tools to produce the 230 W153, which was introduced shortly before outbreak of the war. And for the engine, the machines to produce the 2.6 l M159 were still available. That engine was intended to work in passenger cars at the end of the 1930, but instead it ended up for much of the duration of the war in a 1.5 tons light truck that found much use as a fire-fighting vehicle.
During the planning process in 1949 and 1950, the engine, which had in the meantime been renamed M182, was enlarged first to 2.8 l and finally to 3.0 l in order to cope with the increase of the new car’s overall weight. Along with the increase in displacement, a modified cylinder head with larger valves was added and also the crankshaft was changed from four to seven main bearings. This engine was now called M186 I. The overhead valves were initially still operated by tappets, but during the development process this was changed to an operation via an overhead camshaft. Now the engine was called M186 II. Towards the end of the development it was for simplicity reasons only called M186. It is interesting to note that the car itself was always called W186 II.
The final design of the car was heavily debated internally. In order to save costs, Nallinger had proposed to use as much of the stamping tools for the 170S (W136), which was launched in 1949 and of the pre-war 230 (W153) as possible. So head of styling Hermann Ahrens, who had designed prior to the war the 540K, set out to find a suitable compromise between the taste of the predominantly conservatively oriented customers and new design ideas that had evolved in the first years after the war. His styling proposals with softer, flowing fender lines, the absence of running boards and integrated headlamps found much praise in the executive board.
Karl Wilfert, head of Body Testing in those days and future Head of Design (and styling father of the 300SL) had his own ideas though of how a modern luxury sedan should look like and as he had no success convincing his colleagues or his superior Nallinger, he wrote a letter to his chairman Haspel. He was known and almost feared for his occasional bull-headed behavior, so Haspel, who liked Ahrens design, decided against talking to him. 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.
The launch of the first luxury automobile, the 300
As soon as the car was launched, it received glowing reports in the press. Most journalists, who test-drove the car, called it “international extra-class” or “a car ideal for diplomats”. Also journalists outside Germany shared that view and the 300 received, as it was hoped by Haspel and his colleagues, a sizable part of its orders from abroad. Production capacity was still limited in Stuttgart, so if one wanted to own the car, one better ordered it fast.