Can you believe there hasn’t been a proper long-form CC post about the 220 Fintail? We’ve virtually had the entire W110/W111 roster, be it the 230S or the 200 saloon, the glamorous two-door variants, the elusive wagon. Yours truly even scored a rare W112. But the gold standard of the family, the 6-cyl. saloon that started it all, has eluded CC so far. Well, this example was a little too cramped to allow itself to be photographed extensively. And I’m holding out for a black one – they look so much better in black. So the post will be more of a collection of musings.
I found this unregistered Benz sitting on the forecourt of a Geneva garage back in August. I imagine there would have been many in that part of the world back in the ‘60s. There is something so quintessentially Cold War about these, with a strange mix of upright and louche as well. I bet they were very popular in places like Switzerland, with its rather large potential clientele of bankers, doctors, lawyers, attachés and other shady characters.
This is a black and white car. Well, this one is white, but what I mean is it’s not a technicolour ‘60s car like the Citroën DS or the Rover P6. It’s a background character to a Checkpoint Charlie in the cold morning fog kind of scene. A little bit staid, a little bit sinister, but also very familiar.
The front end is even more familiar to those of us of a certain age. The framing of that big grille with a pair of big headlights, whether composite like here or the stacked quads used on other models or in other markets, became the definitive Benz face for the ‘60s and ‘70s. The W108/109 kept if pretty much unchanged, the W114/115 spread it to the 4-cyl. end of the range and the 600 limo hoisted it to the very top of world luxury. It’s the very definition of iconic. So much so that cars that use a similar design language, such as Facel-Vegas, get mistaken for Mercedes-Benzes by non-enthusiasts all the time.
I remember peering into Fintails as a kid and being completely mesmerized by the vertical speedo. It looked more like a thermometer than a way to measure speed. Honestly, I’m still pretty fascinated by it, but the point of it still escapes me. Originality for originality’s sake, or were the (usually none too frivolous) folks at Daimler-Benz on to something?
The famous fins are also a source of controversy, but to my eyes, they’re pretty tame and work well with the rest of the car. What I find more objectionable is how heavy-handed they were with the chrome – not so much the strips lining the fins as the great chunks of brightwork around the taillights. The W110’s far simpler design looks better, in my view.
I’ve sadly never had the occasion to even ride in one of these beauties, unlike the W108/109. And I guess the W108/109, with its cleaner lines, more powerful engines and less quirky (but still wonderful) interior will always be the best classic Benz four-door as fas as I’m concerned. But there wouldn’t be a W108/109 without the Fintail. And what would all those colourless Cold War spies and shadowy neutral diplomats have used for transport if it hadn’t been there for them?
Related posts:
CC For Sale: 1967 Mercedes 230S – Not Cheap Then, Not Cheap Now, by PN
Automotive & Design History: Mercedes-Benz W110/111/112 Fintails – Béla Barényi And The Elusive Pluckenheckflosse, by Don Andreina
Your featured car brings back memories; looks nearly identical to my high school driver, a white ’68 230S (last year for fintails) with US-spec stacked quads and a blue interior. That speedo was even cooler in action… IIRC, the vertical tape would be yellow from 0-30 MPH, then yellow-red striped from 30-60, then solid red from 60 upward. Still one of the coolest features I’ve seen on any car driven. With a bit more garage space, I’d love to have a fintail to keep my Amazon company.
Had to smile at this! My Uncle Jack bought one from Benzel-Busch in Flushing, Queens, NY as a used car in 1964. As with this one, it was equipped with manual transmission. It had a Becker radio in it. The featured one above has no radio. My aunt disliked the car. In the summer of 1968, she and my two little cousins were in the Town of Luzerne, NY staying with my grandmother, my aunt’s mother, when the clutch failed. My aunt called around from Luzerne to Lake George with no help. When I happened to call to say “hello” I heard of the problem. As my aunt explained it, the clutch is hydraulically actuated. No garage had the knowledge to repair it. I told her to give me a little time. I called the nearest International Truck dealer, who happened to be ten miles away in Glens Falls, NY. A tow was arranged, and the Benz went to Glens Falls where it was expertly repaired. As an IH salesperson, I knew that our clutches for gasoline-powered medium-duty trucks were hydraulically operated. Uncle Jack kept the car until he bought a 1971 Oldsmobile mid-size sedan. Aunt Helen was happy to see the Benz go.
A car I was quite familiar with, although in more austere 190 (gasoline) form, as owned by my best friend’s parents. Starting as a 9 or 10 year old in the back seat, through a handful of behind-the-wheel-experiences as a high schooler and maybe even later. When I was younger, it certainly seemed exotic but as I gained more car experience and as more mundane cars got things like rack and pinion steering, disk brakes and floor shifts, it quickly began to feel old. Another friend’s parents’ Peugeot 504, the same color as the 190 and with a similar powertrain, down to the 4 speed column shift, felt much sportier and more comfortable. Though perhaps not QUITE so solid.
In my direct experience – if ever 30+ years ago could be thus described – the 504 was a vastly more comfortable machine than a W111. The Benz had a bouncy and hard ride, and seats, and it had loud road-roar, and waftomatic steering, whereas the Pug had sweet foam pews, no road noise, rack steering, and a plunging but gorgeously well-damped ride.
With only a quite-superior engine to recommend it, it’s hard to believe that the German was on (expensive) sale until just two years before the Frenchman arrived. The game had moved on so much that a well-engineered lower-cost car was substantially better than the best that money could buy just a decade earlier. (I stress well-engineered – there was still a plethora of crude n’ crappy new ’68-model cars nowhere near as good as the 10 y.o. Benz, of course!)
An interesting old stripper .
IIRC the 220S had two large and thirsty carbys to help it get up to speed quickly .
-Nate
Almost 50 years ago a friend had a 60’s Mercedes like this one. It ran poorly and was difficult to start. Turns out that one of the carburetors was not mixing fuel with air.
Not really a stripper, Nate. There’s the 220, 220S, and then this 220SE at the top, with the ‘E’ for the expensive einshitzenspritz (or thereabouts) fuel injection.
Correct ~ I don’t now what I was thinking .
-Nate
This is the iconic face of Mercedes Benz for people of my generation, 1950’s born Boomers. Because of the consistent styling from year to year, it was hard to know how old a car was. I held them in high regard, because of their scarcity and their reputation for quality construction. But they always struck me as dull, especially compared to contemporary Cadillac and Lincolns. The automotive media liked these cars but they weren’t yet seen as being better than a Cadillac until the 450 SEL debuted in the 1970s.
I had a high school teacher in his mid 30’s back in the early ’70’s who had a fintail sedan. It was in very good shape, probably 10 years old. It seemed like an idiosyncratic choice, not a status enhancing decision. I never drove a fintail but I drove my FIL’s used 450 SEL. Years later when I got my ’94 Cadillac STS I understood what Cadillac was aiming for.
3 y/o me sitting on the front bumper of mom’s
The speedo caught my 8 year old eye- and the the white steering wheel on Mr Watkins’ example in New Guinea.
Quite a difference from the family Fiat 1500.
They are a strange combination of drab and glam, neither working in complement of the other or even for itself. And even an eminence such as our much-missed Prof Andreina and his superb treatise upon these could not persuade this finicky customer into a sale.
They really do belong in the past, another country indeed, in a West German fog, with mysterious types in Homburgs (all looking like Alec Guinness) engaged in tense, semi-abstract dialogue between front seat and back in the midst of a plot that is never quite fathomable.
And yes, they must be black, the only color that somehow masks their sins against the aesthetic order.
I am amused that the speedo attracts folk, because I have the opposite reaction. There’s something penny-pinched about a single-instrument-sized binnacle, something that’s far more VW Beetle than expensive Caddy chaser, and besides, I don’t want to guess my speed on a barber’s pole.
As a kid in the ’70s, I was fascinated by one I used to walk past regularly.
The sheer solidity, excellent condition and its other-worldliness in a sea of cheap British junk…and of course that [i]Fieberthermometer[/i]. Didn’t really make sense then or now…
M-Bs were rare and impressive back then – and it was trying hard to be both.
I rather preferred the W116 350SEL that I also used to see – it seemed much more relevant and more genuinely impressive. Pure Sindelfingen, less Detroit wannabe.
I doubt if this Benz originally was destinated for Switzerland. The round yellow sidemarker (indicator lights) on the front wing combined with clear (instead of amber) indicator lenses in the main beam housings tell me: “Italy”.
So probably not ordered for Geneva diplomat services but for Palermo senior Camorra members. That way, even the white paintwork would “fit”.
I doubt it. The Swiss don’t kid around with stuff like this.
If you assume it came from Italy, you’d never be able to tell: in order for this car to be legal in Switzerland (which it must have been, the CH sticker at the back is a strong indication), the Swiss authorities require any car, even older ones like this, to be 100% identical to how it would have been in sold new for the Swiss market. That means literally everything – including the placement and brand of lights, repeaters, battery, distributor, carburator, etc. – has to be put back to Swiss standard if you import a car privately. I know someone who did this, and it takes a lot of time and money to get right, plus considerable admin hoops to jump through. And they do check. Not worth it for a 2-litre Fintail, I reckon.
The reason they do this is to avoid getting their market flooded by cheap second-hand cars from their big neighbours. When you’re stuck between Germany, France and Italy, you tend to be a bit protectionist.