(first posted 9/9/2015) As a postscript to yesterday’s CC of the Mercedes 300, here’s the rarest version of them all; well that and the 300 Popemobile. This is a custom-built station wagon built by the German coach builder Binz, at the request of a very wealthy American woman, Carolyn Ryan, who wanted a station wagon built to her very high standards to haul her luggage from her Palm beach mansion to her yacht. And she got one.
Not only was it used in Palm Beach in the winters, but then every spring she had it shipped to Europe, to use on the French Riviera and Baden-Baden, Germany. It would have probably been cheaper to order a second one to keep in Europe, but money obviously was not an issue. Ms. Ryan, granddaughter of the founder of American Tobacco, was married and divorced thrice. And was very particular about everything in her life; probably a bit too much so for her husbands.
The rear load area is a two level affair, with the top level at the same height as the folded seatbacks.
Binz had experience building ambulances and hearses on the 300 chassis in Germany. When she asked her NYC neighbor, Mercedes importer Max Hoffman about her desire to have a 300 wagon, Binz was the obvious choice. Although this is the only 300 station wagon, Binz went on to build many station wagons on lesser Mercedes chassis. Just needs some Di-Noc fake wood on the sides…
Seems like she (or Max) missed the boat in one way. It looks too much like a ’49-54 Chrysler wagon from the back. I’ll bet a lot of mere vulgarians couldn’t tell the difference.
Aside from pure status, the Chrysler would have been a better bargain. More cargo room, better folding seat, better tailgate arrangement, better column shifter, and a Hemi.
Nonsense. The Chrysler wouldn’t have been able to offer what she was looking for: a one off, a car she would never pass on the road, an indication of wealth.
What has always fascinated me is how ordinary people don’t seem to grasp the world of the wealth. I’m not there myself, but I do understand it. The truth is, if you are in that wealthy class, you could afford to buy out the production of one of Chryslers factories, most likely. But it doesn’t matter. If you sprayed money out your ass like the chaff stream of a harvester, you still couldn’t spend it all. Why would you bother to conserve money?
No, people who buy cars like that want a car that is precisely what they want. Not a good value. Not a compromise. But exactly it. If I had all the money in the world to spend on a car, I would buy a ZIL 41041. Not a Rolls-Royce, not a Bentley, not a Maybach. And I would get it equipped with soft Doe Skin leather, with mahogany wood trim, mirror matched. I would specify that they adapt the car to run with a Rolls-Royce 6.75 liter V8 because that is a much superior engine. And of course I would get the full armoring package, because if I had enough money to afford this folly, I would need the only thing close to the Beast a non President could own. And it would cost me a few million more than a Rolls-Royce Phantom, especially with all the work I’d have to do to get it US registered.
But thats ok, because the ZIL is the finest, highest quality, most beautifully assembled luxury sedan in the whole world. And that is exactly what I want. That and the fact that I would be the first person ordering one in several years, and the number of 2016 ZIL 41041s would probably remain one.
Illogical? Not at all. I want what I want. I can afford what I want. Therefore I will buy what I want. Why not?
Interesting explanation of the ‘wealthy’ mindset. Never occurred to me . Thanks.
While I get what you’re saying (I was raised in a neighborhood that included Guggenheims and an ITT heiress among others), my focus would be amassing a collection of classic cars that would appreciate in value rather than buying or leasing something that will massively depreciate. If I’m looking for exclusivity, I’ll have it when I drive my classics (example; Jay Leno)
Following in the footsteps of Peter Mullin, my DD would be a Mini Cooper
I agree totally. A beautiful car the Mercedes wagon is. As for the ZIL 41041, not so sure about that one. Looks like a cross between a Mercedes 450sl and an 80’s Lincoln TownCar, both of which I like, by the way…
I think the stodgy Chrysler-look could have been avoided if they had gone fully chromed all around, and made the roof a floating roof. The window surrounds are heavily chromed, and if you look at the D-pillar, you can see that both the pillar and the whole rear screen is sunken vis a vis the window surrounds. It almost looks like they had intended to do that, as those inserts would’ve been flat and on the same level as the windows.
i have known chryslers and that’s no chrysler!
A lovely car built for a woman who was likely a raging b_itch.
Why would you assume that? She might have been… but nothing distinctly indicates as such.
Actually from what I have read about her and her grandfather, they were very generous to charities. Her grandfather Thomas Fortune Ryan paid for the building of Richmond VA’s famous Cathedral of the Sacred Heart and gave to many Catholic causes, hospitals and schools.
Thomas Fortune Ryan? What a name!
Please, no fake Di-Noc wood on the sides. That would really spoil the lines of this stately wagon. No, no, no…
What a high-maintenance princess! No wonder she was married three times. Even with all her dough, there were custom built US-made wagons that could have served the same limited purpose (carrying her luggage) – and it would have cost a lot less. The “one-percent” certainly are different.
Problem with even (or maybe especially, due to the time it took) a coachbuilt Caddy back then was annual styling changes that everyone who knew about cars OR status would’ve been well aware of. Would Ms. Ryan have deigned to be seen in last year’s model?
I don’t hate her; I’m glad she had the money and the temerity to have this beautiful Mercedes produced. You can criticize the original owner all you want but the car that resulted is not a crass Cadillac suitable for Elvis. Rather it is an elegant car that preserves the dignity of the donor car.
The car was featured in the MBCA “Star” magazine within the last couple of years.
I agree…I think the car is beautiful. I don’t know anything about the original owner, Carolyn Ryan.
I wonder if she also had a very high end custom built vehicle to transport her dogs in too. Its good to be rich!
If you would like to see more photos of this unique station wagon that I took for features that have appeared in Mercedes Enthusiast and Classic Mercedes in the UK, click on this link.
http://bit.ly/1956MBZ300SW
I can’t find a PDF of either feature, just one that appeared in the Dutch Mercedes-Benz club magazine, De Zilvester
http://bit.ly/DeZilvester
If I can find a copy of the English language PDFs I’ll post them on my server and add a link here.
Thanks for the link; splendid photographs!
Paul, thanks for the compliment. I will find the stories in the back issue section of my iPad, convert to a PDF, post to my server and provide a link. I have more photographs but both times I photographed the car, at the M-B Classic Center in Irvine, CA, my time to shoot was very limited.
I think that this was the IN car at the time, and It sorta stuck with Mercedes till they got wise and made a true Estate in the Late 70’s-Early 80’s. I oughta know, I own one without the Diesel (common in Canada) and it shares space with an Estate that really got tongues wagging worldwide, the Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser of 1964-65… It’s just that if there was something you wanted, and had the money for it in the mid-to-late 50’s, you got it! Besides I’d take this and a ’55 Plymouth too.
Unlike some Cadillac station wagon conversion; this one is a deftly done job.
I want it! I’d take a Hess & Eisenhardt Cadillac wagon too, for that matter. Built right in Cincinnati, on Blue Ash Rd. I used to bug my dad to drive through the lot at H&E when I was a kid, to see the funeral coaches and limousines they were building. Small wonder I got in the deathcare trade in 1986…
P. S. Paul, pleased to have you back here with us.
I do see the 49 Chrysler in the lines, but that probably cannot be helped in a fairly utilitarian wagon – both of them do their best to take a basic box and make it both elegant and efficient. This car also reminds me a bit of the prewar Packard woodys. An all-steel high-end Packard wagon might have looked something like this too.
What a beautiful car. This is enough to make wagon-loving me declare this as my favorite of all postwar M-Bs. At least for today. Red leather!
As station wagons go, this is perhaps the best looking I’ve ever seen. It’s an unforgivable shame that Mercedes-Benz didn’t produce this for the masses.
The Mercedes 300 wasn’t a car for the masses even in it’s production form. This is a wagon made from their very top of the line car–they didn’t produce it because it would have sold in such low numbers that it wouldn’t make sense. Of there was even a little demand there would have been more coach-built customs like this.
Jason, you use that line “it’s an unforgivable shame that….” almost daily. If you would stop to consider just what you’re commenting on, you’d realize that in most cases that comment is completely off-base, as well as very repetitive. Do you not understand that this wagon probably cost about 3 times what a new Cadillac cost at the time. How could the masses have afforded it?
I forgive them. It would have been a shame if such a pleasurably beautiful car had been common, and therefore not appropriately appreciated.
CincyDavid has a good point about keeping in mind the quite comparable Hess & Eisenhardt Cadillac wagons from the same time period. They were built in very small numbers (single digits per year) to a very high standard and had mostly celebrity or merely very rich owners. I just found a 1956 (1 of 7 that year) for sale at an undisclosed price, no doubt astronomically high:
https://www.dragoneclassic.com/Inventory/1956-cadillac-hess-eisenhardt-station-wagon/
That caddies a good effort but has a horrible formica bench top glued to the sides,
Certainly beautiful, but maybe a shade too hearse-like for my taste. Maybe Marina Blue from a ’60s Chevy would change the attitude.
Nothing wrong with looking like a hearse…I’d take that as a compliment.
Beautiful, first time I see this work of art.
I remember that Nate mentioned the Mercedes Bakkie (pickup) from South Africa last year. It turned out to be a Binz product.
Indeed ~ A Ponton pickup truck , that’s to die for ! .
=8-) .
I foolishly didn’t buy a Binz Ponton Ambulance the two times I found them salted away and forgotten…
As it turns out , I know quite a few 1 %’ers and most of them are die hard Gearheads ~ like me they buy the vehicle they want then modify it to suit their tastes wants and needs .
Unlike me , they have the wherewithal to make them look as good as they run ! .
-Nate
My hypothetical 1950s self is conflicted: on a dollar-per-pleasure basis, it would be hard to justify the 300 wagon over the Oldsmobile Super 88 Fiesta, preferably with triple carburetion. (Lovers of Dynaflow may substitute an Estate Wagon, and Chrysler Town and Country is a formidable competitor too. I can’t make myself like the coachbuilt Cadillacs, and I’ve no excuse for that.)
But the Adenauer wagon is an amazing work of automotive art. The first time I saw pictures, my reaction was simply, “oh no they didn’t!” The custom-fab part embodies is wagon-proud-of-being-a-wagon, as later seen on the Volvo Amazon wagons. And still very few of the lines that made the original sedan are given up. That they did this with no computers, and probably little if any physical modeling prior to build, is pretty cool.
A dollar-per-pleasure basis? How plebeian. And I bet you have to work for those dollars.
Dollar for pleasure basis is highly subjective. I have a fear of unsafe cars. I was in two absolutely terrible accidents in two of my Mercedes. In both cases, I am fairly confident that I would not be living had I been driving a less well engineered car- one of those accidents involved a spin out doing 85mph down a highway during a transition to and from the grass median. The police officer (who saw it happened, and went to bat for me with the insurance that it was distinctly NOT my fault) was in something approaching shock that my car did not roll.
When I find myself in cars I do not know for certain to be safe, I have something approaching an anxiety attack. I see visions of what I would have seen if the car I had been driving that day HAD gone over.
I don’t care how much more the equivalent Benz is over other cars. The pleasure of being comfortable is worth every penny. Even if it is a form of neurosis on my part. Still worth it.
You remind me of the brother of a neighbour of ours. He also had been in a very bad accident in his Mercedes and after that he only drove them. When I was 16 he took me for a short drive on a gravel road in his 230S fintail 4speed. It was areal revelation to me. The best part was he let me drive back! I try to remember that experience and offer to let others drive my “interesting” cars, sort of a “pay it back”.
@ Rich ;
Maybe you need a ’51~ ’56 Caddy Flower Car then ? .
VERY nicely done , I’ve not seen one in a couple decades .
-Nate
The problem we’re having here is that we’re thinking about The Car. And with our love (or at least appreciation) of The Car, we’re missing The Point.
The Point is that Carolyn Ryan didn’t give a damn as to what the car was – as long as the styling was impressive, the interior was luxurious, and (most important) the brand of the car had the proper class and snobbishness. Take that same car and change all the badges and title to “Cadillac” and she wouldn’t have touched it with a ten foot pole (or two five foot Hungarians strapped together). Cadillacs were for people who grubbed themselves up from the middle class, started a small business and were successful at it. Cadillacs were for people who had “pasts”, and not exactly desirable ones, at that.
I seriously doubt that Carolyn Ryan even knew anything about the car she had built. For starters, there were only three nameplates that would have been acceptable: Rolls-Royce, Bentley, and Mercedes-Benz. She probably didn’t know much about any of them, and since she was dealing with Max Hoffman, she probably just said “build it!” and he naturally went for Mercedes.
This is one time where the car didn’t matter. The owner’s expectations did.
There’s a whole lotta “probably” in your assumptions. Especially for someone that you don’t know anything about. I’m not saying your assumptions are wrong, I’m only saying it would be fun to know if you were actually right or not.
For the money (or less!), she almost certainly could have had both a stock 300 sedan to carry herself and a no-option Ford Ranch Wagon for the luggage.
She could have. But I think the bespoke nature of this car is part of the appeal. It didn’t exist, until she said it should, and she didn’t even have to worry how much it cost to do so.
That’s power.
Packard was still alive and kicking (just barely)…let’s not forget that as another alternative.
I am not convinced that MB really had that much snob appeal in the 50s…even though the 300 was an impressive beast, my gut tells me that RR would have been the top of the heap. As a kid in the 60s, I thought of MBs as boxy little “furrin” cars, not uber-luxury cars, and surely not hand-built like a RR or Bentley.
A wagon based on a Facel Vega, that would have been something.
Agreed. The only wagon ever with suicide doors?
I seem to recall reading that the Facel sedans were pretty flimsy…structural rigidity was not their strong suit. That could have been a pretty wagon though.
But you couldnt ‘get’ a RR or Bentley by just snapping your fingers and saying make it, you ended up on a waiting list for a chassis then on another waitqueue at the coach builders, then some 2-3 years after you ordered it the car appeared.
Actually, in 1955 you could buy a complete Rolls Silver Cloud or Bentley S-type right off the showroom floor with a factory Pressed Steel Company body. No hassles and no waiting.
Maybe but then you approach an approved coachbuilder and ask for your wagon to be built and it would likely be done on the same chassis the limos were built not the pressed steel model.
Here’s a Silver Cloud estate. Several were built over the years.
Already the 1949-1955 RR Silver Dawn had a factory body by Pressed Steel, and was available at your local RR dealer; at least in the US. No need to wait long, if at all.
The overwhelming majority of RRs and Bentleys after the war were the factory bodied versions. Very few went for a Phantom or such, as they were massively more expensive.
CincyDavid: As a kid of 60s, your impression was clearly lacking in the bigger picture. The world’s top celebrities and richest of the rich were buying 300s in the 50s. They did have that much snob appeal.
And that’s precisely why Mercedes became so popular in the 70s: everyone knew they had more snob appeal, even a lowly 240D, than a Cadillac or Lincoln, and they could now afford one.
It’s the way it almost always works: an object is very exclusive and the masses are very aware that it is and they can’t have it; then eventually it becomes more readily available, and more people want and buy it.
Does Mercedes still have real snob appeal? Not nearly as much as it did in the 50s, when only a few very wealthy (and those in the know) were driving them.
Paul, I was a lot more impressed by my neighbor’s DeTomaso Mangusta than the other neighbor’s little Mercedes Ponton sedan, but I see your point about the 300 as a halo product.
I’m not sure I agree with you. You don’t know the woman. Perhaps she really appreciated the fine quality of the car. Perhaps she spent her time dabbling in engineering and knew that this and the BMW Barque Angels were the finest, most advanced, most capable luxury cars built at the time- if it is a 1956, it was likely ordered before Citroen’s DS stole that away from Mercedes for nearly a decade.
Or more likely, perhaps a friend had a MB 300, and she simply liked that car, and wanted one precisely like it but a wagon.
I’ve known a number of very wealthy women over time. Some of them are just as some of you are painting this one. Most of them, however, spend their time being extremely bored, and usually take up a hobby of some sort. They are often idiot savants on some subject or other, and often have a passion for it.
As others have said; an assumption that may well not be true (or true). I’m guessing it’s not clearly in just one camp, but from the article I’m attaching a blurb from, I’m going to say it wasn’t nearly as simple as Syke implies:
(from an mbca.org post by Gary Anderson: http://www.mbca.org/star-article/september-october-2012/manor-born-1957-binz-built-station-wagon-300c-chassis )
Caroline Ryan – granddaughter of Thomas Fortune Ryan, co-founder of the American Tobacco Company and the 10th richest man in America during his lifetime – grew up with wealth. Married and divorced three times, Caroline Ryan Foulke was accustomed to having things done exactly as she wanted them, whether it was in her extensive philanthropy or her personal life.
When she wanted jewelry, for example, she sat down at Van Cleef and Arpels or Harry Winston and had them make the jewelry to suit her impeccable taste for simplicity and elegance.
Not surprisingly, when Mrs. Foulke decided in 1956 that she needed a station wagon to take her luggage to the yacht moored in Palm Beach, Florida – a yacht purchased from Harold Vanderbilt – she stopped in to chat with her friend Max Hoffman in the Mercedes-Benz showroom just a few steps away from her Park Avenue apartment. Though there was nothing like a station wagon in the Mercedes-Benz catalog and Hoffman’s influence in Stuttgart was waning, he suggested a solution: Have Binz GmbH & Co, experienced in building ambulance and hearse bodies on the 300 Adenauer chassis, build a station wagon to her specifications.
Consequently, the latest 300c limousine, in standard trim but with an optional air conditioning system and radio, was shipped the short distance from Sindelfingen to the Binz coachworks in Lorch in 1956. There it underwent a complicated conversion that began with removing the roof from the top of the windshield back, and the body from the B-pillars back.
Perhaps reflecting Mrs. Foulke’s concern that she did not want the wagon to look anything like the typical Binz ambulance or hearse, the greenhouse is quite delicate, with chrome window surrounds accenting slender pillars below a simple roofline that extends back to the rear hatch. Taking a leaf from standard station wagon design, rather than the typical side-hinged Binz rear door the wagon has a top-hinged liftgate and bottom-hinged tailgate. Again, perhaps reflecting Mrs. Foulke’s taste, instead of the standard Adenauer taillights, the rear lights from the popular 190SL were used. Recent articles note the resemblance to the Mercedes-Benz 300TD wagon introduced almost 20 years later.
On the exterior, Mrs. Foulke specified a sedate dove-grey color, though to ensure that she would be recognized at the gates of her Palm Beach yacht club, the car carried thin diagonal stripes from the upper front corner to the lower rear corner of each front door in the red and blue of the club’s pennant. Adenauers were typically shipped with black wheels and body-colored wheel covers, but period photographs of the car clearly show chrome wheels and wheel covers, typically an American touch.
Does that change anyone’s assumptions?
Sounds like a woman of taste who knew exactly what she wanted in her car. I applaud her for bringing us this; how much money she had is material only insofar as that it allowed her to indulge in such sophisticated discernment.
It doesnt resemble any of the ambulances google could find, its a total one off body and thats not cheap in any era, no matter who made it.
Wow. Defines the word exclusive. So then, it’s a Binz Benz? How about a feature on these Binzes?
People have exclusive cars built for their own reasons on a facebook group I belong to a car surfaced for sale today a Triumph 2500 wagon, rare in its own right but this is the only Ferguson 4WD version ever made, built for a wealthy Swiss gentleman its on its 3rd owner has been restored and the number below it wasnt a telephone no it was the price, HUGE, Probably cost as much as this Benz to build in dollar terms.
I am picturing it as a woody with a couple of surf boards sticking out of the back, very swanky indeed!!
This 1956 Type W121 190 sedan would make a great surfwagon!
Not infrequently, the ultra-wealthy commissioned one-off custom-bodied luxury cars, not only because they could afford to, but also emphasize to the proletariat their elevated position. Unhappily, that didn’t always result in an aesthetic improvement. As example, Google 1948 Chrysler Crown Imperial Limousine by Derham built for Margaret Merriweather Post.
Very few postwar station wagons based on luxury cars were aesthetically pleasing…….
What a perfect use of chrome. Just enough in all the right places.
A truly stunning vehicle.
And another similarly rare, and one-off 300 ‘wagon’ is on display in the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, the factory Measuring Car. Not quite as elegant as this example, but pretty cool.
I think this discussion is on the wrong track talking about the car ( station wagon) as transportation or as an overt status symbol. I think it is about art. Several rich people I sort of know commission artists to create something that is fun for them and helps lead society forward. Same idea here – I think she was just having fun and showing what was possible.
We same the same thing in architecture. Rich people hire very creative people to experiment. And, in the long run some ideas turn out to be fabulous and we are all enriched.
Also, I have zero idea what her politics were but in 1956 WWII and Germany were still a very sore subject with many. Maybe she wanted to showcase great craftsmanship. Who knows…
I tend to agree with Former Saturn Owner – looking at what Paul posted regarding her jewelry, she was someone who enjoyed having beautiful, well made things, and she had an indifference to money that can only come from long experience with wealth. Further, she had her own refined taste. I don’t think that she gave a damn about impressing anyone – people were already impressed with her before she entered the room. She chose Mercedes because she knew that they were well made and hassle free, and she knew Max Hoffman.
“Max, I want a station wagon – my luggage is always getting delayed and so I’ve decided to just handle it myself. What do you recommend?”
“Well, Mercedes doesn’t have anything that would do what you’re asking but we could have one made for you; there’s a company named Binz that does excellent work.”
“What would it look like?”
“That’s the part you’ll enjoy – it’s up to you. I would start with the 300, but we can do whatever you want.”
“Perfect. I have some ideas”
…
Had I the money (sigh), I would try to do the same kind of thing. Even on my small middle-class income I try to surround myself with well made objects, and I believe that “form should follow function but nothing need be ugly”. Further, I want things that are as hassle-free as possible. I don’t want to be fiddling with a bunch of buttons or adjustments. I want beautiful things that do exactly what I want them to do without any thought required. Walk up to it; do whatever and walk away getting on with my life uninterupted. Further, I want quality because I don’t want to have to learn a new unit every year or two.
I think that for me, the currently available starting point for my bespoke personal vehicle -that I would drive myself- would be an Aston Martin Vantage. I can’t think of another vehicle line that would be a suitable starting point.
But…enough rambling; there’s taters to peel and breaktime is over.
built by the German coach builder Binz
Can we call it a Mercedes-Binz?
Here, FWIW, is the (extremely brief) Wiki entry for Binz GmbH & Co. KG, who are apparently still in business:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binz_(vehicles)
What a beautiful car. From certain angles – primarily from the rear – it bears a strong resemblance to Chrysler Corporation wagons from the early 1950s.
I saw a Chrysler wagon greenhouse plopped on a Mercedes 300 when I first viewed this, and cannot unsee it.
But I do like it more than that Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud estate conversion.
High end luggage wouldn’t accept anything less…
This has quite the presence. The red leather interior puts if over the top. One has to wonder if the red interior was specified to help hide how she got rid of her first two husbands?
F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, “the Rich are not like Us.” He was probably right. The true generational Rich do belong to a culture of their own. While the popular appeal of the self made man holds sway with the general public, since we share similar roots. The rise of the super wealthy business person, performer or sports celebrity is easier for us to grasp. I would think that the interests of the truly Rich usually don’t mesh with ours, except in the case of certain automobiles.
Apparently MB of Manhattan wasn’t willing to accommodate Mrs. Foulke’s request for a W112 wagon, so she had Bentley create this for her in circa 1960. Apparently this is one of only six custom coachbuilt long wheelbase Bentley S2’s made:
I don’t think the perfectly straight lines of the greenhouse go very well with the graceful curves and roundness of the body. They would look better on the 600.
Ok, I commented yesterday that I don’t think the 300 series was amongst the best-ever lookers as many other seem to, but I retract that for this car.
Turns out that maybe it’s just the back of the 300 that falls a bit short for me, because the airy balance this greenhouse provides seems to fix my reservations.
How very lovely it is.
These unique vehicles wouldn’t exist without the wealthy so for that I am thankful.
Otherwise I think the uber-rich are doing fine owning everything and everybody and don’t require any more attention from me.
Exactly, I see a lot of school bus in those windows.
@ TheMann ;
They should always be watched and they never stop plotting to enslave you….
I’m of moixed minds about this particular station wagon, I *just* missed a Binz wagon a couple years back, it appeared and sold the few days I was out of town, but of course .
-Nate
Exquisite. I work with the daughter of Bruce Iannelli, who owned this beauty at the time of the Dutch article posted upstream. Sadly, he’d sold it by the time we met, but she was very impressed I knew about it.
My next door neighbor in high school was a real car guy, and had a 1954 sedan he acquired from his sister. So solid. My two W109 SELs were nice, but simply not in the same league.