That Mercedes van today was a little bit scary, wasn’t it? It was probably the last vehicle you’d picture if somebody said “Mercedes-Benz” to you. So, like an unappetizing meal requires a palate cleanser, here is a beautiful W116 S-Class. When was the last time you saw such a light and bright color on a full-size luxury sedan? And yet, it works: this gold/bronze is one of the most attractive 1970s paint colors I’ve seen. That decade was full of avocadoes and chocolate browns and lime greens and oranges, and such period shades are a product of their era and are reviled by many today. I can’t imagine many would loathe this lovely W116’s paintjob, though. A gorgeous color for a gorgeous car.
Beautiful color – it looks luminescent in the night. The W116 classic look still stands out – it’s a big car but doesn’t look overwrought. The W126 continues that lean but not too big look, which unfortunately, didn’t carry over to the W140, which looks like a tank.
Strange, in fact that is what I always disliked in both the W116 and the W126 – they look “skinny”, without the sheer massiveness of the American full-size sedans. W124 and W140, on the other hand, were always my styling favorites, they carry their size with pride instead of attempting to conceal it.
That skinniness is mostly due to the prevailing lowline saloon thing best expressed in the Jaguar XJ four door. I’m really surprised at how ‘low’ my w116 feels to get into and drive. Of its time.
Last week I’ve seen an almost identical W116, towing a trailer on a highway. It seems to me that it had a somewhat lighter/paler shade, but the lighting on the photo may distort the color.
And I just snapped this one about two weeks ago on the streets of lower Manhattan. I think this one was called champagne, and the subject car is a different gold color, the name of which I forget. There was a tremendous selection of colors, all of which looked good. I especially loved the greens. It’s too bad there’s no color variety today.
This was German design at it’s best. Germany had recovered economically, and the Italians were showing the way with engineering beauty, the British were showing the world what luxury was about, and the Americans had a few things to say about creature comforts, and brute power. Now Mercedes stepped up to say what their idea of the best mass produced luxury car in the world would be.
Size and weight were stepped up slightly from the predessesor, but not too much. The car would be engineered to be safe and easy to handle at speeds it was capable of. The detailing, such as the grooves on the taillights was all designed to reinforce this point. The car was roomy but in every respect, form followed function.
You could criticize the lack of power seats, or wonder if vinyl belonged in a luxury car, of if the seats had to be so hard, or why there wasn’t a taller cruising gear to make cruising more relaxed and economical. All valid questions, but I like that the engineers were given the freedom to do it their way.
My judgement was that the XJ12 was the best mass produced luxury car in the world at the time, but the W116 gave it great competition. The next generation of luxury cars from all manufactures were watered down by requirements from governments and international customers. This generation showed national identity, a feature I deeply respect.
While I would freely admit to my love of the W116- one of my favorite cars of my life was a ’79 300SD in a color I can only call electrometalic brown (same color as the 6.9 in Ronin, in fact) that I bought and cherished until I could no longer justify owning a car that was, really, a toy. Selling it was hard- I wanted references and assurances from the buyer of the car being loved more than I wanted money for it.
And please, stop this. There is nothing wrong with an MB100. Either Spanish or Korean. Mercedes-Benz is a company that engineers and builds vehicles for a purpose. They build a Uber Sedan like an S-class and they fit it out with every luxury and nicety you can imagine, and some you can’t, and make it look huge and expensive like you just spent a fortune on a car.
They build a commercial van, for the commercial van market, where operating expenses are measured in fractions of a cent per mile, where purchase price is important, and driver comfort (since the driver rarely owns the vehicle) is almost irrelevant… what are they going to build? What do you want? Lashings of chrome? A big bulging grille with a stand up hood ornament? Leather seats? Lambswool carpets? Stunningly swoopy styling that will easily be dented?
Of course not. Tight maneuverability from a cab-forward (short wheelbase for length) set up? Yep. Good visibility? Yep. Low load floor? Yep. Durable seats from the hours they are going to be sat in? Duh. Rust proofing in places other than the US when they are going to be worn out mechanically before they ever rust? Maybe. It was not a luxury van. They didn’t even market a luxury version.
Commercial truck built like commercial truck with commercial truck styling and commercial truck features. Whats the bloody problem, mate!?
Excellent comment !
At least there’s someone out there who fully understands and accepts that Daimler AG builds more than Mercedes-Benz E- and S-Classes (and their predecessors).
Here’s another purpose-built Benz with a big grille + star.
This applies to the Sprinter rather than the MB100 but “What do you want?”
How ’bout something that doesn’t out-rust a ’70s Fiat or Chevy Vega?
Love that car, and the color is great! One of my favorite Mercedes-Benz models from an outstanding period in their history. Something about the W116 styling, with its just-right blend of curves and creases, really lends itself to interesting metallic colors. A quick google search lead me to PaintScratch.com, which lists MB colors by year for touch-up paint. I selected 1979, and counted 31 colors! My Mother-In-Law drove a 1979 300SD literally until the wheels fell off, and got over 300K miles out of it. Hers was a somewhat odd combination of Light Ivory exterior (non-metallic) with a dark blue MB tex interior. Somehow the color combo worked and actually looked good, though a gold/bronze like this one would have been really nice. If this car is a ’79, then I’m guessing it’s finished in Ikon Gold Metallic.
I would buy this color now on a new Mercedes.
It’s so weird to my US eyes to see a W116 with the Euro bumpers/headlights, it’s such a pretty design as intended. I still prefer the W126 but this was such a great era for Mercedes it’s hard not to fall in love with it.
Nice cars to be sure , I prefer the W123’s and didn’t take the FREE 1979 W-116 300SD I was given some years ago ~ in retrospect a serious mistake but I simply don’t ‘ get ‘ the whole S Klasse thing .
My Brother had two W126’s , one is ivory and looks terrific .
-Nate
The coupé is a killer! And of course at least equiped with as 250/280 E (gasoline) and automatic transmission…also in the estate and 4 door as well. Diesels are boring, slow and loud. But…very very sparsam…on the fuel and maintenance costs 🙂 Our cabbies liked them…but their numbers are drasticly decreasing because of their age…and implementations of the lower emmission norms…
For reasons I don’t understand , Mercedes didn’t make a European Spec. W-123 Turbo Diesel Coupe so I made this one my ownself……
It’s not as fast as I think it can be but it’s no slouch and I’m always tinkering to get a bit more ‘ oomph ‘ out of it .
I really enjoy running it in Road Rallies with my old British Sports Car friends , when they see it coming they know to speed up or get the hell out of the way P.D.Q. =8-) .
-Nate
When I first looked at this picture I thought it was a 1978 Toyota Cressida like I had in this color in the early 80s; Toyota must have been copying MB; and with the 340,000 miles it had on it when I sold it; it ran like a Mercedes. I called that color “baby poop brown.”
I saw this proper Benz in town yesterday, though seeing that its now diesel powered I suspect it has a LD28 transplanted in
When I hear the words “Mercedes-Benz”, this model is what immediately comes to mind.
Beautiful!
Although I thought the the earlier stacked headlamp S class was very impressive looking the W116 really changed the game. This car incorporated most of the American style luxury features while retaining the Mercedes identity. These are just classy looking, expensive cars, the styling conveyed solidity and quality. Now thirty something years later these are being considered modern classics. This model was really the death knell for Cadillac’s perceived superiority. I saw a real clean one for sale on CL at a good price. I hope some one bought it to preserve and cherish it.
Nice. Even though MB is historically associated with white, then silver, for its race cars, there’s some thing about gold that just fits the marque. Nothing wrong with a lime green or Mimosa Yellow w116, mind.
White with appropriate signage in the rear window I like, I see this car around a lot its somebodies daily bomb, it reads classic not plastic
My parents bought a second-hand 1977 450SEL during our summer holiday in Germany in 1982. We still have the original sales receipt: DM 20,858.31 (about $9,500 at currency exchange rate in 1982).
We brought it to the United States and registered it as ‘personal exemption’. The ‘personal exemption’ rule meant we weren’t required to do the modification work to meet the US regulations as long as the vehicle was at least five years old and was not permitted to be sold in the United States. That rule was eliminated in 1988 thanks to the intense lobbying effort by Mercedes-Benz USA.
Our 450SEL quickly became instant favourite amongst our American friends because of unique colour combination: dark metallic green paint and green interior, including seat upholstery covered in stiff velvet-like clothes. Not to mention the little headlamp washer and wiper system (that was before the aero headlamps from 1983 on in the United States). They would gather round the headlamps to watch the wipers swishing back and forth.
The rear hydropneumatic suspension system (common amongst European version of W116) was set little higher than front, giving the rakish appearance similar to the original Studebaker Avanti.
My parents brought the 450SEL back to Germany in 1991 when my father was transferred back to his original employment. The Germans, especially notorious TÜV, were amazed to see a pristine 450SEL with no chassis rust or any body issues.
My father drove it for a while before decommissioning it in the late 1990s due to increasingly expensive registration fee. The car didn’t have any catalysators so my father had to pay more on top of motor displacement fee (I believed it was DM 23.00 per 100 cc). He wanted to wait until the 450SEL was at least 25-year-old in order to qualify for the antique numberplates.
We still have our 450SEL to this day.
Really nice. Interesting read about the twists and turns of the paperwork of the two countries.
Beautiful car. Really one of my favorite colors on these.
What a nice an interesting story! What about an ecological update? When my family sourced a Euro 1 emmission norm 1993 XJ40 it came with a so called “Umrüstung” device marketed by “Ate” boxed in the trunk. I think the former owners got rid of the car because of the same reason about that you wrote. The car is in excellent condition but the price was very low. I think they did not wanna spend money for the update, so they sold the car for símbolic price. We did nothing with the car since then. But if sometime we’d like to put a local reg plate on it, we will have to attach that so called umrüstung device in order to update the engine’s emmission to the Euro 2 level…which should result in lower registration/insurance costs…
I erred in saying 25 instead of 30 years old in order to qualify for H-Kennzeichen (antique numberplates). I must have gotten it mixed up with current NHTSA’s import exemption for vehicles 25-years-old or older.
So sorry!
My father discovered recently how hard it is to receive the H-Kennzeichen for our 450SEL. He’s still working on it so I shan’t bother him for now…
One more thing… I had seen lots of these (only black) W116’s in former Yugoslavia as well as in old communist Hungary during the early ’80’s. These were (I suppose) regular official cars of the higher rated central commity party functionals, military/police officials… Yugoslavs had the small bumpered euro-spec versions, while the Hungarians had the U.S. specs…those with the big-big bumpers 🙂
Here in my actual neighbourhood a W116 appeared on the streets till few months ago. A dark blue, daily driver in a very very used condition. Two weeks ago I turned to a local junkyard to dig some Opel and Daewoo parts… The old Benz already sat there… As well as the one and only (lonely) local Buick Reatta…burned out and cutted in half…or a rare Ford LTD, etc. You see cars as daily drivers during the years/decades. You think those are beloved by someone. Than “next” week you see them dropped and disgraced in one of the local junkyards… until they disappear forever…
Terminology question: I’ve always heard recent Mercedes referred to as S Class, C Class etc. In this thread there’s mention of the German equivalent “S Klasse”. In the recent YJ Wagoneer thread, someone referred to the British TV show “Last Tango in Halifax” (which I had always assumed was about Novia Scotia) so I started watching it. In the first episode a British policeman makes reference to a Mercedes “A Series”. Is that common British usage or just a mistake?
Just a mistake.
You would not believe how often people, especially the writers, made wrong references to the vehicles in the films and serials. That also included the wrong model year for the period scenes, i.e. 1986 Mercedes-Benz 300E for story taking place in the 1970s.
I usually contribute a lot to the Goofs sections in Internet Movie Database about the vehicles…
I briefly owned a gray-market 450SE in granny smith green with saffron corduroy/velour, Euro-bumpers with headlamps washers and US market headlamps, manual A/C controls instead of the awful servo-driven climate control the US cars had. It was a rusty old heap, but fast for a sedan from that era. The 280SE I bought as a parts donor wound up being a better, more complete car so I kept that and dumped the 450. It’s nice to see big cars in something other than shades of gray.
Too late to edit…I snooped around and it looks like my late, lamented 450SE was Zypressgrun/Cypress Green. I found a 450SEL for sale locally, but they wanted too much money, the seat pads had all collapsed so it would have needed renovation of all the seats, and the root beer brown exterior turned me off. I like SOME 70s color schemes, but I just can’t deal with brown.