The Mercedes 300 and 300S Series

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

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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