Memorial Day 2016 is marking the end of a soggy spring in central Iowa. I combined a joy ride with car lot visits in the Des Moines Metro area pondering which car to get for my wife. I decided to take the scenic route home which took me through some small towns. I recalled some 20 years ago seeing a white Mercedes Benz Heckflosse in a side street in Slater. On a whim I decided to try my luck.
BINGO! There it was parking on the very spot. Today I was ready with a Canon SureShot digital camera that replaced a much loved Nikkormat SLR from the 70’s. I parked on the opposite side and digitally sampled some Kodak moments: 3/4 front, straight-on side. I need 5 good ones, that is what Paul’s writer’s guide says. Get the dashboard through the passenger side window it suggests.
As I approach the car from the right rear the owner came out of the house and struck up a conversation. “It’s a 1966 200D. My BiL had it in a garage for 17 years because of a bad head gasket. He called me up and asked if I wanted it. So I went down there to Texas with a trailer and brought it back. A head gasket is no problem for me,” he said. “I am a mechanic, a diesel mechanic at that.”
I asked him if I could sit in the car to take a shot of the dash. He obliged without hesitation. I recalled how fascinated I was as a kid when I first peeked through the window of a 200 Benz. The upright band speedometer was out of this world for me. It topped out at 160—-km/h of course. This one tops out at 100 mph.
This Benz features some modern conveniences. There is a navigation system on top of the dash (beats aiming through the star) and the radio is certainly not from the sixties. The air conditioning was most likely installed as a dealer accessory when the car was purchased new. Beyond that there are more signs pointing to the Benz’s battle readiness: good quality and properly inflated tires, parking stickers on the windshield and up to date license plates.
The owner opened the hood without any encouragement from my side.”For some time I used it to commute to work at Camp Dodge,” he pronounced. Camp Dodge refers to the Iowa National Guard site near Saylorville Lake and I just bypassed it myself coming from Des Moines. It’s a perfect commute for this Curbside Classic with the road stretching through corn and soybean fields and then gently curving through the Des Moines River greenbelt. In my imagination I see him navigating the wafting Benz with a content smile on his face while listening to the Diesel’s audibles entering the cabin. I imagine its percussions are a bit too agricultural. Witness the sound insulation under the hood.
Things look very well sorted there. However, the owner volunteers that the oil consumption is going up. I am optimistic that he will give the engine a once over in due time.
May this veteran Diesel carry on. And thank you for your service!
This has always been my favourite Mercedes-Benz style. I’d buy one myself if I can find one in good driveable condition. 🙂
Oooh, a Nikkormat! Great car and all, but I love (and collect) film cameras. Here’s a report on my own Nikkormat.
https://blog.jimgrey.net/2015/09/16/nikon-nikomat-ftn/
They were built like tanks and extremely capable.
Jim: I threw this in just for you. I read your report before. 😉
I am a Pentax guy (a Pentaxian to the ‘trade’) but the one Nikon made film SLR I own is a Nikomat FTn with “cold shoe” (used with a Vivitar Auto 252) Both still run! Just this year I ran a few rolls thru it! I only have a “normal” 50mm Nikkor lens, limiting my experience with it. It is a seriously over built machine! like a K-1000 or Spotmatic, She only needs battery for the meter (a bonus on the road!) and yes, the “modern” alkaline batteries dont seem to make a he** of a diff in the real world!
Oh, golly, a Nikkormat. The lab guy in the photo department where I was working had one he wanted to sell me, and I borrowed it for a trip to the SF Bay area. It was a truly lovely camera, big enough so that I could find everything and get my fingers in there, a snap to change lenses … but so heavy I came home with my first case of tennis elbow! I wound up getting a little Rollei SLR instead, a choice based on the very good used one I’d bought for my ex. Unfortunately, the later ones were not so well made …
As a kid, I had a neighbor who drove a Mercedes 180. It looked so strange seeing that grille go up with the hood when it was opened. Not so strange anymore. Good looking cars.
They were munching inept service station attendants back then.
Great find!
You wouldn’t by any chance have taken any pictures of that pristine Eagle Talon parked behind it would you?
Sorry, Brendan. Like a rookie CC contributor I only had eyes for the MB. I’ll check some time if it’s there again.
No worries 🙂
Beautiful. Elegant, unpretentious, and engineered like no other car in the world.
These look somewhat like a late 1950s Rambler. (Though with much more advanced engineering!)
A school friends parents had the same car but a 190D with 4 speed column shift it was incredibly slow on hills and unlike where this example live Northland NZ is nearly all hills, but they are not noisy to ride in there is ample sound insulation, the noisy diesel comments always amuse me my diesel hatch makes a hell of a lot of noise if you listen outside, inside at any rpm its almost inaudible the little you can hear is not distinguishable as a diesel.
Great story. Hard to believe they actually sold the 200 D in the USA. I think now they tend to sell only larger engine variants there? When I bought my E350 here in Australia in 2013 it was high up the range, with various 200, 220 and 250 petrol and diesel versions below it and only the 500 above. I looked at the Mercedes USA website and to my horror the E350 was the base model and the price was around 75k…..I was paying 128k here in Austalia, though we seemed to get a lot more standard equipment at that time. about to trade the E350 – tossing up between a new E class (not here yet) and a BMW 640 Grand Coupe – a sort of BMW version of the CLS.
There were no larger MB diesels back then. In fact, the 200D replaced the 190D just a few years earlier.
Nice find. There’s one or two around here still clattering away too.
It’s very familiar to me, as we rode in a number of these as taxis when we were in Europe in the summer of 1969. I vividly remember riding in one up to the Kalenberg, just outside Vienna. It was a very leisurely ride.
And with A/C no less! Good thing it also didn’t have the automatic! Slow is beautiful 🙂
One of my earliest memories–I must’ve been 3 or 4 at most–was getting in the trunk of my dad’s ’61 190D and shutting it. He was…upset. Horizon Blue with bright red MB tex interior. I would imagine that that upholstery would be as perfect today as the one in this car–that stuff is indestructible. And I too remember that amazing speedometer: as I recall, when you got to certain speeds, it would change color (that could be my imagination). The car came from a family friend (?) in NYC who had neglected to tell my dad when he bought it that it had been rear-ended. He discovered that when he ran out of fuel because the tank had been dented. The car soldiered on to 1971, when rust had taken its toll from Pennsylvania winters.
My dad replaced it with a car that was barely known at the time–a BMW (1969, 2500); people used to ask him what it was, and in those days, BMW’s were rare enough that drivers would flash their high beams when they came across another one on the road. (Wonder when that stopped happening? Late 70’s?) I remember my dad saying that the BMW was much faster and more fun to drive than the 190D (no surprise there), but that he thought the quality and sturdiness of the interior bits didn’t match the Mercedes.
I can confirm that the speedo ribbon does indeed change colour – yellow up to 30 mph, then with red stripes from 31-36 mph, then solid red above 36. It’s not may favourite part of our 220SE and 300SE Lang, but it is up there!
Any thoughts on the purpose? They don’t seem to be intervals that would correspond to normal shift points for a manual transmission. Anyway, glad to have confirmation that my 45+ memory is accurate.
I believe it is more about urban speed limits than engine speeds – the maximum speeds in each gear are marked on the speedo as well, as is the case on my W201 as well – which also has a yellow hatched area from about 50km/h to 60 km/h…
That would make sense because 50km/h is the speed limit in towns for Germany and many more countries.
Buick and Imperial had speedos that changed colors at different speed ranges. Perhaps sold as a “safety feature”, but more likely, It was just cool looking as hell. Speaking of alternative speed indication, My Electras that were equipped with the “speed minder” were great to “prank” unknowing borrowers: Turn it all the way down and have them guess why there was an ominous loud buzzer a 15 Mph!
Some Dodge and Oldsmobiles and heaven only knows others had the changing speedo’s, remember my ’59 Dodge Super D-500 Coronet Lancer and ’62 Olds 98 coupe (w/ 62 Starfire engine), if you stood on the gas from a dead stop the speedo’s slammed up to 120 so fast you couldn’t see the color change, the cars enveloped in tire smoke The Dodge was a fintail also.
Nice to see another survivor out there .
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As they age these tend to get windshield and backlight leaks when the rubber grommets dry out , then water gets underneath the rubber floor mats and stays there until the floor pans rust out , causing fine old cars to be scrapped =8-( .
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Slow yes but easily 40MPG .
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-Nate
I love the style of these. A few years ago, I was momentarily tempted by a gas-engined 67 model that was for sale in a WalMart parking lot for not much money. I remembered that there is nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes and did not follow up. Have never seen it since.
It is good to read about someone who appreciates a car like this on its own terms.
When I was a young teenager (maybe 14), my older sister’s friend had 190 gas fintail with an automatic, and it was quite leisurely as well! I remember the vertical speedometer, and I believe there was a button under the gas pedal that would force transmission kick down.
Looks like it’s in great condition! Also interesting to see a lower-spec Benz, with rather minimal adornment (other than the aftermarket A/C and radio). Good memory on remembering where it was on a previous trip past!
Great spot, great write up. It’d be great if all street parked CCs were owned by such obliging and helpful people!
Shameless plug for my very first CC contribution:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-outtake/cc-outtake-1966-heckflosse-reporting-for-duty/