MERCEDES - BENZ
THE 1950s
The 180/190 Ponton W120, W121
1953 – 1963
By Bernd S. Koehling
Copyright 2012 Bernd S. Koehling
Smashwords Edition
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CONTENT
The Cars
180/190 W120/W121 (1953 – 1962)
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.
This was an exciting time for Daimler-Benz, as it slowly started to develop the export business, which was less than ten years after the war not an easy undertaking. Especially the participation at the London Motor Show in October 1953 was done with a certain amount of apprehension. But luckily and despite strong British competition, the visitors were quite interested in new cars such as the 180 and as one Daimler-Benz employee later remarked, the crowd was bigger than they had ever experienced at any other show before.
Risks had to be taken and rewards were sometimes doubtful. Nobody at Daimler-Benz for example had anticipated at the end of the 1940s that the Diesel would become such a big hit with consumers. But the 1950s were also a time to finally wave good-bye to prewar styling. True classics like the 300 sedan lived till the early 1960s, but as their sales performance showed, at the end people wanted to see something different and the introduction of the new ponton series in 1953 was the first step into that direction. From a design point of view it was not an easy task for the team around Karl Wilfert, as they had to find the right balance between traditional minded customers and new market demands.
It was also a time, where more modern engines for the 180 right from the launch had to be shelved as due to a booming economy suppliers were booked solid for months and couldn’t deliver the necessary machinery tools. Global sourcing hadn’t been invented yet.
But the economy wasn’t only booming in Europe in the second half of the 1950s. The general situation was even more upbeat in the US, where a high employment rate and increasing wages created a burgeoning more affluent middle class that proved to be a fertile breeding ground for imported sports cars from Europe. While the British were naturally the first to develop that still small niche successfully with affordable cars such as the MG A, Austin Healey 100 or Triumph TR 2, the market proved to be so lucrative that also high-end thoroughbreds from Aston Martin, Jaguar, Ferrari, Porsche and Daimler-Benz could achieve sales volumes that would have been impossible to reach in Europe.
For Daimler-Benz the 1950s started with an old warmed-up four-cylinder car dating back to the 1930s. Management had big uncertainties of what the future might have in store for them. The decade ended with an impressive line of modern cars, which were ready to take on the best that competition could throw at them.
March 2012
Bernd S. Koehling
MB 180 W120 BI-IV (1953 – 1962)
MB 180D W120 DI-III (1953 – 1962)
MB 190 W121 BI, BIII (1956 – 1961)
MB 190D W121 DI-II (1958 – 1961)
Developing the 180
It was early 1953 and Daimler-Benz faced one of the most important new car introductions in its recent history. While the 170 clearly dated back to the prewar era, the 220 was merely an upgraded 170. And the 300, although widely claimed as a modern postwar luxury car, still carried prewar genes in its chassis and its design.
Something more dramatic needed to be done and finally it was delivered. The 180 sedan (W120) was introduced in September 1953 and was Daimler-Benz’ first true postwar design. It already started to evolve in 1950, one year before the 300 was launched. By October 1951 a smaller version of the 300 was almost ready for testing. This car could become the successor to the 170. The styling department of Daimler-Benz, headed by Karl Wilfert, was part of the Research and Development Division, headed by Dr. Fritz Nallinger. In that position, Nallinger was also a member of the executive board. After much debate, Nallinger and his team agreed that the proportions of this first attempt weren’t too convincing. On top of that, it was argued that it looked a bit dated for a successor to the 170. This might sound a bit surprising. After all, Mercedes had just successfully launched the big 300 in that very same design scheme. Did they think that, when it would be time to launch a new middle class Mercedes in some three years, this design would be out of style already? Nallinger and his team knew that the Borgward Hansa with its ponton design, launched already in 1949, was the way to go for Mercedes too. He had pointed that out already in meetings in early 1949. So they did away with the 300 design and started again from scratch.
This switching from traditional designs to more modern thinking shows a bit the dilemma that Daimler-Benz faced in those days. Design wise they couldn’t afford to fall back too much behind the competition, but at the same time, they were aware of the risk that their more traditionally minded customers might not be willing to follow them. The 300, which hasn’t been altered dramatically during its entire production run, is a clear sign of how keenly management was aware of the preferences of the larger part of its clientele.
By the end of October 1952, the final ponton-style design of the 180 was approved. Mind you, that was just eight months prior to the actual launch of the car. Initially the car was supposed to be introduced as 170Sc, which seemed a logic succession to the 170Sb. But when one looks at the engine displacement, for many years a clear guidance for the Mercedes type, it wasn’t that logic anymore. The engine displayed already in the 170Sb 1,767 cubic centimeters.