(White 300SEL shots are of my younger son’s former car, which met an untimely death by his hands, but not before I had a chance to drive it. A story for another time. – PN)
When we last left off, the dark blue 300D turbodiesel had been sold to a local surveyor friend. I had not identified a replacement “rescue” COAL yet, but I had in mind to find some type of W126 Mercedes S-Class. I really liked these, and by 2002 or so when I was looking, they had been out of production for over 10 years, and some cheap ones could be found.
The 450SEL I wrote about before was part of the W116 S-Class series, from 1972 to 1980. The W116 was the first body to be referred to as an S-Class, though the W108/109 before it is considered by many to be an S-Class. The W108 just wasn’t typically referred to, or marketed that way.
I actually have a W108 now, a 1970 280SEL I have owned for about 12 years. I’ve never used it as anything other than a weekend driver, but I’ll have to write it up at some point. It’s in a garage in an old country house we inherited about 90 minutes away, so I don’t play with it very often unfortunately. But, I’m thankful to have a free place to keep it inside.
One day on my way to an adjacent county, I passed the small used car lot owned by the retired Florida car dealer. This was the same lot where I stumbled upon the dark red, nonturbo 300D. And lo and behold, he had a long wheelbase W126 of some sort. Like the W116, the W126 was sold in the US in both short and long wheelbases.
Short wheelbase, note the slender chrome trim piece between the rear door panes. Also, this is a pre-facelift version with fluted plastic cladding and Bundt wheels
The turbodiesels of both were generally the short wheelbase (300SD with the legendary 5 cylinder turbo), except for the last few years when they went long (300SDL with an inline six turbodiesel that could be troublesome). The gas V8’s were generally the long wheelbases, though the 380SE of 1984-85 had the short wheelbase.
I could tell his was a long wheelbase by the painted trim piece between the rear door glass that lowers, and the fixed glass pane in the rear door. On the long wheelbase, this piece was wide, and painted body color in the middle. On the short wheelbases, it was just a chrome piece. It was just an easy way to tell at a glance which one you were looking at, as the greater overall length wasn’t always immediately apparent. The wheelbases were only about 5 inches different, 115.6 versus 121.
It also had the smooth plastic lower cladding, “new style” wheels borrowed from the 1986-on E-Class, and flush headlights. So, I knew it had to be a 1986-1991 model of some sort. I was excited to find a 420SEL or 560SEL, so I thought. I was surprised to look at the trunk and see 300SEL displayed.
I don’t think I had heard of a 300SEL at that point, at least not in this body. It was a gasoline straight six, the same 3 liter engine used in the lighter W124 300E, but here it was installed in the long wheelbase W126. Wikipedia says this was one of the lower quantities of the W126 body, about 40,000 sold worldwide from 1985 to the end of the series in 1991 or so. For contrast, the pricey and top of the line 560SEL was almost twice as common, about 75,000 sold.
With 178 horsepower, the 300SEL wouldn’t win any drag races then or now. But after the two diesels, it felt peppy enough. And at the time it was built, there was much less equipment (safety or entertainment) on board. With one driver side airbag and antilock brakes, the long-wheelbase 1988 300SEL only weighed 3,417 pounds! My 2016 Lexus ES350 COAL from last week weighs right about two hundred pounds more, on a ten inch shorter wheelbase. But, it carries ten airbags, and equipment not available on any car at any price in 1988.
As an aside, the 300SEL new car sticker was $56,250 in 1988, or about $117,600 today. It’s interesting to see how much more equipment your dollar buys you today. In 2002 or so, the 14-year-old 300SEL I was looking at was priced at $3,000, or about $4,500 today. And indeed, you can find serviceable 2003 S-Classes for $4,500 or so now. In fact, I see a 2001 S55AMG for $4,800 online right now! Good grief, someone buy it before I do.
It didn’t look quite this good, but it was this exact color and overall appearance.
I could see that this was probably a car he had brought up from Florida: the interior looked OK, but the champagne colored paint was rough and faded though the car barely showed 100,000 miles. The bumpers were losing their paint and the rubber itself was showing. When I caught the man in the office, he said it had no wipers, so he wasn’t sure he could sell it. No wipers? The fuse had been removed from the wipers to prevent further damage, but he thought it needed a “wiper transmission”. Oh, and it had no heat either. The blower came on, but it never got hot.
I offered him $2,000 cash and he accepted. I thought I could fix the heat myself, but the wipers had me stumped. I knew I would have to get that figured out quickly, as I had to pass state inspection to get a tag, and I couldn’t risk getting caught in the rain, either!
The heat sure enough turned out to be the coolant valve assembly, what Mercedes calls a “duovalve”. These are common problem points to the Mercedes climate control system; this was part of what I paid someone to figure out with the dark blue 300D that had no heat. This controls the flow of coolant to the heater core, based upon input from the temperature wheel. There is a little rubber diaphram inside, and when it fails, the electrical parts flood and that’s the end of the duovalve. It can fail closed so you have no heat, or fully open so you have unrelenting heat, or any point in between. About $100 new, I replaced it myself in a few minutes (it’s up high on the firewall, easy to reach) and crossed my fingers. We had heat!
The wiper research concerned me. This Mercedes body did not use an articulating arm like many newer Mercedes, but it did have an unconventional arrangement where both arms mounted near the center of the cowl. Nowadays, there are a lot of online videos and tutorials about “W126 wiper failure” and it’s apparently quite a Rube Goldberg type of linkage. This video is one of my favorite Mercedes sources, Kent Bergsma, who has a lot of very helpful YouTube videos. A W126 wiper transmission is on the bench in front of him.
This is a W116 S-Class, but the wiper arm arrangement is the same as the W126, and this was the only image of them in action I could find. You can see the somewhat unconventional action; these are not quite fully deployed. The thinking I believe was that the water would be coming off the blades parallel with the airflow; and you would not have all the sloshing right in front of the driver’s face as you might see with a passenger arm that reached over into the driver’s field of vision.
Here’s another shot of W126 wipers at rest. So, the location of the transmission was not readily apparent. The pricing I was seeing fifteen years ago was $700 plus, as well. So I was worried I had a major expense on my hands, if I had to pay someone to figure this out.
My first stop was to replace the missing fuse, and see what happened. Once I had the fuse in, I turned them on. They fully deployed properly, but on the way back down, the passenger arm moved much more slowly than the driver side arm, and they therefore collided and became intertwined. Gee, that’s not good.
I flipped the cover over the mounting nut up, removed the nuts, and removed the arms to untangle them. They didn’t seem to be tightened down very well. I reinstalled them in the park position, after running the motor with the arms off to get the shafts to return to the “park” position. I tried the wipers again, and they worked. Worked just fine, not getting close to being tangled. They extended fully and parked correctly. I never had any more trouble from them, and I surmised that apparently the problem all along had been simply that one or both arms were not tightened down sufficiently. So, that fix was free!
I like the 300SEL so much I thought about getting it painted. I got an estimate or two but was too busy to follow through. The bad paint condition was really the only meaningful problem, after I had fixed the heat and wipers. The AC, stereo and cruise control all worked fine. It did get very poor mileage, I don’t recall ever getting out of the teens under any circumstances.
I installed a set of Michelin Symmetry radials, which were not sporty but rode quietly and smoothly. The rear resonator was a little loud and quickly got worse. It was just an old fashioned, round muffler, not a custom or specific fitting piece like a lot of newer cars. My local tire and exhaust place replaced it and fashioned a new tailpipe to look as original as they could muster.
My thoughts about keeping the 300SEL and painting it were dashed when, you guessed it, I was seduced by another rescue COAL we will read about next week. I parked the 300SEL in front of a bustling new all-you-can-eat buffet with a for sale sign on it, asking $4,500. The first person who called me about it was a nice older retiree, who had always dreamed of a big Mercedes. Here was an affordable and good running one at a reasonable price, and it went on to a new home in better shape than I had found it.
This generation of S is beautiful, easily the most beautiful Mercedes of the 1980s. To be perfectly honest, I disliked the 190E – all the traditional Benz styling cues on a small car made it look fussy – while the W124 E-Class didn’t really appeal to me. That is, until I came across one the other day and took the time to stop and look at it. I found the details really impressive, particularly the rear window. Very handsome cars that I have newfound admiration for, but even they aren’t as timeless and beautiful as these big Benzes.
1980s Mercedes-Benz interiors – at least on the E and S – really, really impress me. Their designs have aged remarkably well, they look warmer and more inviting than one might expect of a German car’s interior, and they look expensive.
Contrast that with 1990s Benz interiors. I was looking at a W210 E the other day and the interior looked so generic and 1990s, it no longer looked a cut above its rivals. Overall, Mercedes-Benzes just didn’t look as impressive and prestigious as they had in the 1980s.
I agree the W126 is one of my favorite cars ever.
I think the W126 is the best-looking postwar Mercedes sedan ever. It manages to be both elegant and sleek.
My son had a W210 briefly after he destroyed this white car, and the interior was utterly depressing. The cheapness of the materials in comparison to the earlier W126/W124s was unbelievable. Utter crap, for the money. Loathed that car.
I noticed that in my late father’s W210, too, which seemed to be a dramatic downgrade from the first class to economy class.
Paul, I’ve seen you mention this before and I wonder, what year was your son’s w210? My father had a 1997 e420 (new) and I loved the car! Yes it had a ridiculous and cheap cup holder, but I don’t remember the interior as cheap, and I had a 1993 w124 300e (used) to compare against just a few years later. My brother also had a 1999 e430 (used) and I loved it as well. Maybe I’m just not as discerning, or maybe Mercedes began to reduce the cost of parts very rapidly starting in the 2000 model year?
interior looks good but equipment looks sparse ( for the class of car ) , unless I’m mistaken ?
I remember many 2am drives from London to South Wales in a 500SEL in the late 80s. The main M4 motorways was quite empty at that time, holding 135 mph for miles was completely unremarkable, slowing only for other traffic. Sounds quite reckless but the cars stability and braking was outstanding.
The only other machines on our roads with such performance were Jaguar XJS and V12s. The owner was very proud that it was the big one, but I had a Jaguar 420G at the time which was more spacious and the seats more comfortable, in truth the Merc interior was a bit bland
This Mercedes did have fantastic engineering and overall build quality, and this model held out very well against rust, unlike the previous S class saloon and later MBs.
I had a 78 350SE, at around 6 years old it was starting to bubble on the rear wheel arches, at around 120k miles the autobox sheered its converter, had that fixed, then within another 1000 miles, the right bank camshaft seized despite my fastidiousness around oil changes. The cost was eye watering and ended my love affairs with Mercedes Benz which began when I passed my driving test at 18 and drove my fathers 63 220sb fintail
The 420G is a very striking and imposing car. Much more than an xjs… My least fave jag of old. Ironically the 6 cyl xke’s are pulling in more $ now than the 12″ s. I’ve never liked the jag 12… For a 12 it was pretty disappointing in all categories.
In the 80s 1970s V12 jags were rusty old cars and nearly worthless with their dipsomaniac fuel consumption, could be bought for a few hundred pounds
An impecunious friend was always buying them for ÂŁ350, would put a fivers worth of fuel and drive round the block a few times, that’s all he did apart from stripping them and selling the parts. A V12 without exhaust manifolds sounds like a mini Merlin engine, they were easy starters as well only seemed to take a 1/2 rev to fire, guess one cylinder was always compressed. Those were that days playing with such things
Nothing makes your day like a best case scenario like the one described here with the wipers. Pretty cool that you were able to enjoy this Mercedes and then make a few bucks when all was said and done.
There were a lot of these floating around the wealthy areas of Southern California when I was a kid. They were status symbols that suggested more sophistication than a Cadillac. Then the Lexus came on strong and seduced many of the older, wealthy folks who were taken by the customer service and high quality. Gradually, the last of these big Mercedes disappeared.
That wiper assembly is something else. It really shows how the German engineers look at problems, or should I say find problems worth looking at. They drive the cars they are working on. “Franz” must have noticed that the wind could be harnessed to remove water from the windshield if you put it in the center of the windshield in a vertical line. I bet one of “Franz’s” ideas was to make both wipers move towards the center from both sides. He then discards that idea because it leaves a dirty stripe on the windshield and represents a problem with snow. Then he employs his high school trigonometry and comes up with this “Waltz of the wipers”.
Great job, Importamation! I can relate to the relieve one feels when a potentially huge bill is resolved with a little attention to detail. Fixing a loping idle in my COAL Ford Windstar comes to mind. About $40 of parts, finding a “how to” article on the web and an afternoon of turning bolts dispatched of a $500 to $800 bill.
Your rescues are inspiring to me.
The unique wiper system isn’t exclusive to Mercedes-Benz. Porsche had used the similar system, placing the wiper anchor points closer to each other in the middle, for most of its 911 models range until Type 996.
The late British automotive writer, L.K.J. Setright, had complained vigorously about the absymal view from the driver’s seat in R107 because of wipers parked on the same side of driver’s. Mercedes-Benz corrected this glaring issue with its W116, ensuring the wipers were parked properly away from the driver’s side. However, it didn’t with subsequent R107/C107…
Growing up with the family’s 1977 450SEL, watching the wipers in action was very mesmering with upper wipeg makint a very wide sweep to the left while the lower wiper sweeped to the middle then reverted back to the resting place.
I believe the Saab 900 wipers had a similar action beginning in 1978…
I wish I had your luck with w126 reliability. Mine was an ’89 300SE with only 90k miles (about 20 years old when I got it). Constantly breaking, expensively. Even when it was working right, it was slow and loud–that powertrain was designed for 55-mph speed limits. It was my first classic, and it was quite a disappointment. Gorgeous, though.
Here’s “Frau Rauchsilber,” the somewhat mocking name my friends gave it because I always insisted, “It’s NOT champagne!” (to mind, champagne is a willfully bland Lexus color).
I’m sorry you had bad luck with your Benz, but I can assure you that its powertrain was not “designed for 55-mph speed limits”. The 300SEL can hit 130 mph, and like all Bnezes (except the slow diesels) it doesn’t really “wake up” until you’re over 75-80 mph.
Obviously, acceleration is not neck-snapping, but it will pick up its skirts and move along…IF….you show her the spurs. These cars have a notoriously “slow” gas pedal, meaning, it needs to be really pushed a lot further than typical American cars to get it to move. And you can’t be afraid of high rpm; these will turn 3200 rpm at 65 mph. The rear end gearing is lower (higher numerical) than the V8 models. But that’s what it needs in order to hit 130 mph at its redline (6500 rpm).
These cars are almost the polar opposite of big American cars, which have good low end response and cruise at speed limit with low rpm. Which means they’re not really very suitable for lots of Americans, unless they understand that. Which explains why lots of Americans tried them and moved on to something else, or just got used to them. Sounds like you didn’t.
I probably would’ve tolerated the high-revving engine had the rest of my car been reliable, but that wasn’t the luck of my draw. Highway cruises were simply unpleasant with the engine roaring at 4k rpm to keep up with present-day traffic. In any case, I should’ve just spent the extra money for a 420 or 560 model. Lesson learned–as I mentioned, it was my first classic car, and my choices have been (mostly) wiser since then.
Paul, I’m surprised by your observation that a lot of Americans “tried them and moved on to something else.” I had always been under the impression that in the 1970’s and 1980’s MB had strong brand loyalty until Lexus came along. If you had the money for an MB, I can’t imagine going back to an American “luxury” car. (I say that with some personal knowledge: one of my cars today is a 1991 Cadillac Brougham… which I love as a boulevardier, but I still don’t delude myself about its miserable handling and wheezy engine.)
My wife daily-drives an e23 7-series, and the highway experience is leagues beyond my old 300SE. I don’t know if they were priced comparably during their period of overlap, but the e23 is a far superior vehicle in the 6-cylinder “sonder” class.
Perhaps I should have stated that a bit differently. What I should have said was that back then, Benzes were not really the best choice for all Amercans. Many were drawn to them because they were the hot status item, and many gave up comfortable V8 Amercan sedans for 240Ds and such, putting up with noisy, smoky, slow and not very soft-riding cars in the process. Mercedes seats and suspensions back then were designed for long, high-speed runs on the autobahn. Quite a few Americans complained about both those issues, and found that the Lexus LS didn’t have them, as well as coming with a standard V8.
The defection was really to the Lexus LS, when it arrived. Mercedes was in a panic, and had to drastically change its methods, materials and whole strategy, tailoring their cars to compete against it. That made the seats and suspensions softer, and lots of compromises in their build and materials.
In a way, it was almost comical for met to watch Amercans’ Benz-mania back in the day (70s-80s), as I knew many of them were paying 2-3 times as much and getting cars that actually didn’t suit their driving and comfort expectations. Frankly, these 300SELs were pokey and slow, unless one floored them. Which is pretty absurd, given their six-figure price tag. They should have come standard with a V8 at these prices. The Europeans had different expectations.
So in a way, the 300SEL was a joke, an expensive and bad one, that Mercedes pulled over on many Americans. But Lexus put a stop to that pretty quickly.
In addition, we had a very strong ‘yuppie mentality’ (yuppie means young urban professional) during the Reaganomics or voodoo economy in the 1980s. They wanted to flaunt their wealth gained from their professional jobs.
Henceforth, the pressure to keep up with Joneses by buying luxury items such as European cars, gee-whiz gadgets from Sharper Image, clothes with luxury labels, etc.
For some reason I adore the 116 cars. Not a big fan if the 126… But I like this one. My fave 126 is the SDL version. Esp the 350.
Used to own an 86 124 and it was one of the best cars I’ve ever owned.
The proportions of the SWB 126 “SE” always look better to me than the LWB “SEL” – and did so on the 116 as well. The SELs seem to have been an afterthought. The extra length is not as egregious as it was in the 107 when an SL became an SLC. The 126 seem to have been well designed as SWB cars and the beauty of the car is compromised when stretched, albeit only a few inches.
The 300SE/SEL has the M103 six – good for about 177 HP as I remember. It is ideal in the 124 but for me it probably would be fine in the bigger 126 too. So I keep my eyes open for a very nice 300SE in an uncommon color.
I agree with the comment about the interiors of Mercedes of this era. I know them in 124s and admire those in the 126s – especially the later “facelift” versions with the angled pleats on the door panels.
Your ability to go after issues on these Mercedes is admirable. I will do some of this work – door check straps, switches and some paint work – but I am not as capable as you’re documented to be.
I am so glad Paul added shots of their own 300SEL! I had no idea, that’s great. If the tan interior shots are the same car, it must be a late one. 1990? I’m thinking the pleats on the door panels were one of the final years, but the very end of the W126 run in 1991 added a passenger airbag which meant no glovebox IIRC. I don’t think I have seen one with a passenger airbag in the wild. I had the same tan interior and zebrano wood. You’ve got the SEC style seat upholstery which is more modern looking, too.
As I said in the caption, my son had this fairly briefly, during a very tumultuous and difficult period in his life. This was three years ago. But I did take it for a drive, which made me realize that these are not for me anymore, as wonderful as they are. My driving patterns are all wrong for something like this. But it is an impressive piece of work. And it sure takes a heavy foot to get these to really move. 🙂
And yes, the interior was very nice; seductive.
These things are simply TOO BIG ~ my Brother is in love with Mercedes S Klasse sedans and his 300SD wasn’t big enough so he bought a 1987 300SDL ~ boy howdy is that a monster . I dislike driving it but it carries an amazing amount of crap .
Cheap and reliable, dead easy to fix, it has the two year only (?) 300 i6 diesel with the bad casting cylinder head, I found a replacement head in Pick-A-part, had it rebuilt and slapped on, all is well since .
The W126 chassis incorporates very good aerodynamics in the windshield making wiper use a rarity unless we’re in Wi. or other gully washer typ rain area .
He doesn’t even use Rain-X as I do .
There are still plenty of these about, a guy in Ct. is asking $500 for one with front end issues : http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/mercedes-cars-sale/388992-1983-300sd-eastern-ct-%24500-obo.html
And they’re all over So. Cal., the gasoline models are nearly free .
You really have to run one of these through the twisty bits at speed to appreciate how well they handle, I still don’t ever want one .
-Nate
Nice car! I remember my introduction to those German/Japanese style of wiper attachments. One morning I turned on the wipers on my 85 GTI. One was frozen to the windshield and stayed put while the other one started wiping. Oh no, I thought, I broke them. I was used to the US system where the arm attached to the knurled knob. But I was happy to figure out that a quick tightening was all it needed.
That’s funny, one of my ’86 GTI’s started flopping about in a rainstorm, just like in your case, a good tightening was all that was needed. Freaked me out though to see them tangling while at speed!
I had the left wiper go off the edge of the car in my ’87 Scirocco for the same reason.
According to the official German website, Mercedes-Benz stated that the first generation of Sonderklasse originated with Type 220 in 1951 even though the S-Class nomenclate was adopted in 1972. The W126 featured in this article is sixth generation. The current S-Class (W222) is tenth generation.
Daimler AG’s press kit (in German): http://bit.ly/2xIObrF
Several car magazines have corroborated this fact as well: Motor Trend, for instance. http://www.motortrend.com/cars/mercedes-benz/s-class/
You misread it. What they said was that “the direct ancestral line of the S Class began with the 1951 220”. That’s substantially different than saying the 220 or the Adenauer 300 and other pre-W116 cars were actually “S Class” cars. The W116 was the first to be referred to as “S Klasse/S Class”. One could argue just as well that the 1920s “S” was an S Class too. How far back do we go? To the first Mercedes, which in its influence, technology, engineering and other qualities was perhaps the ultimate “S Class”.
The simple reality is that NOBODY referred to these cars as “S Class”. And I lived through that whole 50s-70s era. The term simply hadn’t been invented. Note that those 220 and 300 cars did not have the letter “S” as part of their nomenclature.
There were Mercedes models going back to the famous 1920s S, SS, SSK and SSKL models that used “S” to denote “Sonder” (special) or “Schnell” (fast), but there was never an S Classe/S Klasse.
Mercedes’ PR/heritage folks are of course happy enough to have you think otherwise, but it’s not historically correct. Sure, think of those previous models as part of the ancestral line, but it was not really quite as simple as that.
For instance, based on that info, both the mid-50s 220 and the big “Adenauer” 300 were S Class (or pre-cursers). Can’t be both.
Please don’t cite Motor Trend here. 🙂
Thanx Paul ;
I remember the gasser six cylinder cars in the 1960’s came with an “S” after the “250”, they all had huge dual SOLEX carbys so I’d thought those were the first S Klasse Sedans .
-Nate
All right, I stand correct. Sorry.
Count me in as a big W126 fan as well. It’d be a fantastic car for the vast distances in the West here. I’ve given these some serious thought over the years – I think a 420SEL in Smoke Silver with the Burgundy interior would probably be my pick. I like the V8 cars but have come to realize the “Junior” V8 models are just fine, no need for the biggest one.
Love the 280SEL as well, one of my bucket list cars. (Well, actually the 280SE 4.5 specifically but I wouldn’t kick that one out of the garage either.)
I worked for a Mercedes parts house in Portland around 1990, we did sell a few of those pricey, complex wiper linkage assemblies in the rainy PNW. You really dodged a bullet only needing to tighten up the wiper arms!
Those fancy heater valve assemblies were also a good seller. Along with European bumper and headlamp assemblies.
I’ve always especially liked those old W108’s. They just seem to be built like a bank vault and look like a proper old Mercedes should.
Mercedes seemed to go out of their way to have unusual wiping systems. After this it was the single giant arm “eccentric sweep.” I remember a feature about it in one of the car magazines when they first used it, and how the way it dipped in and out was supposed to clear a greater percentage of the glass.
It was always amusing to be behind one of these cars at a stoplight and watch the whole vehicle rock back and forth from the force of that one wiper flinging about.
I remember the time I drove a friend’s 1984 500 SEL from San Francisco to Los Angeles back in the early 90s. It was a decent enough automobile, but I found the Mercedes’ steering to be surprisingly vague and overboosted and the driver’s seat very uncomfortable.
I’ve driven a few late 80’s BMW’s that had great seats and phenomenal steering.