The “Heckflossen” (“fintail”) Mercedes sedans were controversial from day one. Why would such a traditional and classy company like Mercedes stoop to adding that American affectation? I heard that and variations of it at the time it arrived to great fanfare in the late summer of 1959, when I was still in Austria. That’s not to say it wasn’t well received; rightly so, given its technical superiority as arguably the most advanced sedan of the time in the world.
And it’s not like fins hadn’t shown up in a wide variety of European cars, including on some of the most expensive Ferraris and such. But somehow, on a Teutonic Mercedes, they seemed a bit out of place. No problem; we’ll just shear them off for the coupe and convertible, with the result being not only perhaps the most beautiful Mercedes, but also a template for the company’s rear ends for some time to come.
For those of you needing a quick refresher in the subject of heckflossen Mercedes, here’s the tonic. Our much-missed (but well) contributor D. Andreina gave us a deep meditation on all thing heckflossen here back in 2017 (I’ve borrowed a few of the images from that post).
In a nutshell, the decision to give the new W111 sedans (220S top; 220 and/or 190 bottom) fins was also controversial within Mercedes, with no less than Karl Wilfert, Chief of Body Engineering and Styling calling for them to be cut. He lost that round. But not the next.
There was of course a long tradition at Mercedes of coupe and convertible versions of their sedans. The “Ponton/Pontoon” version was a rare bird in its day, given its lofty premium in the 1950s. Its styling is also not universally praised, although it’s certainly become another classic Mercedes.
So it was a given that the w111 series would of course have a coupe and cabrio version too, and styling work began in 1957, a year or two after the sedan.
According to Don, the first approach was to use an SL-style front and, which was also being considered for the still-born W220 sedan (lower right). It also had a panoramic windshield, another styling export from Detroit. But what it clearly didn’t have is fins; at least not in the sharply defined definition as on the sedans. Instead, the ends of the rear fenders were now defined by a pointed peak; a vestigial fin, at best. A more refined and appropriate look, undoubtedly. The coupe also clearly has an overall-lower body and as a first for Mercedes, curved side glass. As to whether that top photo is really of a proposed laundalet version or the rear glass wasn’t ready, I’m not sure.
In any case, I rather like that front end, and I’m a bit sorry that Mercedes chickened out on it. The question of when and how the classic radiator grille should be replaced was an endless debate within the company. It would be a few more decades before the S-Class coupe finally dropped it.
There’s also these photos (from Don’s piece) of this approach, closer to the definitive version, but sporting the fins. We may never know just exactly how and when the fins were plucked, but the result is anything but a “plucked chicken”.
It was of course the right call; the coupe (and cabrio) weren’t just a w111 sedan with a new roof; their bodies were totally new, with a significantly lower belt line along with all the other changes, which made them look much less boxy than their sedan counterparts.
The rear end previewed what was to come in 1966 with the W108/109 sedans. Of course the fender tips/winglets were filed down some more, but otherwise it’s a very direct progression.
This progression of the theme was continued largely intact on its successor, the w116. It became a Mercedes hallmark almost as much as the radiator shell.
The same can be said for the front end, which is almost a dead-ringer for the W108’s. In reality, the w111 coupe is really closer to the w108 than its w111 sedan stablemates. Perhaps they should be called “The First S-Class”, which is a somewhat nebulous and debatable distinction anyway.
These pictures show that Mercedes gave serious thought to using the W111 coupe’s roof for what became the W112 300SE, which ended up just using a W111 body with more bright trim. Or is this a concept for what was to become the W018? Its tall and boxy W111 body suggests otherwise, and the coupe roof is not all that well-suited. But then the W108’s actual C Pillar is essentially an evolution of the coupe’s.
The coupe featured the first use of curved side glass on a Mercedes, and added considerably to the effect of having left its boxy fintail roots behind.
These coupes and cabrios came with very substantial leather-upholstered thrones.
The dash was also unlike the odd vertical speedometer nacelle of the w111 sedan, and feature lots of genuine wood. Of course that tends to get weathered from sun exposure. It too previews the W108’s dash to a considerable extent.
The W108 dash appears to be essentially identical except for the use of a padded binnacle and some other detail changes. Another validation that the W108 was really the sedan version of these coupes and cabrios.
The front seats have been pushed all the way back in this one, resulting in…zero leg room.
There was also a “Safari seat” option for these, but it;s quite rare. It includes smaller, sportier bucket seats front and rear. I assume they’re from the SL.
I’ve never seen these in the flesh, but they certainly change the interior’s character.
This coupe has its turn signals incorporated in its headlight nacelles, unlike the blue one earlier. I see pictures of both versions.
Of course these round headlight versions are all US market cars, as the European version had these fine composite headlights, which first appeared on the sedans and were a pretty big deal at the time. These are on a 250 SE convertible I shot a few years back.
Over its then year lifespan, these coupes and cabrios came with several versions of the classic Mercedes SOHC six and finally with the new 3.5 L V8. The original 220SE came with a 118 hp version of the fuel injected 2.2 L six. For the 1966 MY, the newer seven-main bearing 2.5 L version replaced it, and upped the power rating to 148. Two years later the 2.8 arrived, with a 158 hp rating (all are net ratings; the gross numbers used back than are higher. The 3.5 LV8 was rated at 197 net hp; it also had a lower and wider grille.
This 250SE has the four speed automatic. Folks tend to be impressed that it already had four speeds when it first arrived in 1961, but the so did the GM Hydramatic in 1938, and for good reason. Like the original Hydramatic, these M-B automatics did not have a torque converter but used a fluid coupling, which does not provide the necessary torque multiplication (or effective lower gearing) that a torque converter does. The gear ratios are 3.9833, 2.3855, 1.4605, and 1.000; first through fourth. So no overdrive, and the ratios are very similar to a four speed box.
The lack of a torque converter makes it significantly more efficient, with losses in the 2% range than the more typical 10%.
I once rode in a friend;s 250SE sedan along with the driver and two passengers. In the hills surrounding LA, it really had to work hard; that’s the reality of only having so little displacement for a good-sized car. Prior to the V8 models that came out in about 1970, Mercedes were designed for European conditions, and that was not necessarily ideal for American ones. But that didn’t stop folks from wanting them and acting on those feelings.
The light was terrible when I shot this car; a low sun on a cold, crisp day. It was nice to have the sun out so much this winter, but a light overcast is much better for shooting.
Related reading:
Mercedes W110/111/112 Fintails: The Elusive Pluckenheckflosse D. Andreina
Mercedes 250 SE Convertible: The Classiest Mercedes Of Them All? PN
Car Show Outtake: 1965 Mercedes 220 SE Convertible J. Dutch
I have always been a fan of these cars’ styling. The wrapped windshield was not really avoided here, only toned down to the more conservative versions that appeared in the US on the 1955-56 Chryslers and mid-1955 Studebakers (in which the A pillar retained some slope).
It would be interesting to discover my reaction to the powertrain on one of these cars if I had the chance to live with one for awhile. I have driven underpowered cars that are maddening, and I have driven underpowered cars that compensate in other ways (such as my early Odyssey). I suspect one of these would be of the second kind, but perhaps not. All of my Hydra-Matic experience was in a car with an abundance of power, so the Benz would be an interesting contrast.
The first time I saw a fintail Mercedes from the rear, I immediately thought ’59 Plymouth. Seeing the photos above didn’t change that initial impression. Interesting.
I am still awestruck by the grace of the Heckflosse.
My family had a 16 foot fiberglass bodied travel trailer that our 1967 250SE, with 4 speed manual, managed to pull across the Rockies, somewhat slowly but with no overheating or any other issues. The 55 mph speed limit suited it very well. It was, I imagine, a lot safer than most car/trailer combos of the time in coming down steep grades, what with four-wheel discs. I’m not sure if it had self-leveling rear suspension or not, but it was certainly a beautifully constructed vehicle.
For many years (as in until last year, I think), I fully believed that the W111 coupe was actually the coupe version of the W108. I see it turns out I wasn’t too far off-base to begin with. It’s certainly better-looking than the W111 sedan, though I can’t decide whether or not I prefer it to the W108 sedan — which is a cleaner design, though a bit less voluptuous.
I hadn’t thought much about the radiator grille until this article, but I agree that the SL-style front-end treatment on the concept makes the actual product look decidedly baroque in comparison. Another case of tradition ever-forestalling the avant-garde.
Those ‘fintail’ sedans outward peaked fender ends and general rear configuration immediately brought the 1958-’59 Rambler Classic styling to mind. How degrading! On the other hand, the coupes and cabriolets were elegant and fascinating though I had almost no in-person encounters with them. Great Lakes Motors in Buffalo, NY advertised in the Buffalo Evening News, encouraged the interested to clip the coupon to have the sales folder sent…which I did.
The light blue one is the second car I’ve seen today with dual mirrors on the front fenders. The first was a ’59 Pontiac.
Lovely cars. I’m so glad they lost that chromed vent trim that so busied up the sedan’s C-pillar. That made more of an impression on me than the fins, to be honest; chrome where you wouldn’t expect it. Mercedes cars of the period always seemed chromier than other European cars – was that a Mercedes thing, or a German thing? In sixties Australia we didn’t get Opels or German Fords, Borgward had fizzled out and BMW was almost unknown, so I have no period comparison.
There’s a simple restrained elegance about the coupe, with just enough detail to avoid looking plain. A nice intermediate step between the Heckflosse and the W108/9, though as well as blunting the fins they also raised the trunkline between what remained of them. These cars were always a standout. Loved them until one almost ran me down as a teenager – hard to be objective about them when that happens, but not the car’s fault. Closest I can think of to simple elegant design these days might be Bentley; it certainty isn’t current MBs.
I would love to hear our resident lighting expert’s opinion on Mercedes’ European headlights of the period. They just look so….. right. And they even appeared on some period customs back in the sixties; I remember seeing a pair on an FJ Holden once…..
These big glass tombstone-shaped headlamps were just as weak and inadequate, especially on low beam, as the rest of the European headlamps of that time. Just as quick to degrade due to reflector corrosion, too. They look lovely, to be sure, but—unpalatable though these facts are, the unsexy American sealed beams gave the driver much more light on the road and much longer seeing distance, much more durably over a much longer service life than the European lamps. Even the European version of the quad round headlamps (described below), with its state-of-the-art H1 halogen low and high beam lamps, did not give substantially better low beam performance—about double the light from the H1 bulb versus the low beam filament of the tungsten high/low bulb used in the tombstones, but a much smaller reflector, so that’s roughly a wash, and their durability wasn’t all that much different, either.
The stacked quad round headlamp setup was also factory-installed on some cars in Europe. On those installations, these fixtures held Bosch lamp units: H1 low beams above and H1 high beams below (cutting-edge headlamp technology at the time), with colourless or yellow lenses. The outboard plastic triangular lens for the front turn signal was amber in most European markets once amber replaced white for the front turn signal colour roughly Europe-wide in ’67, for there was no amber bulb approved in Europe until 1992.
These are very handsome cars in my opinion. There is just something about a two door hardtop of this size. There have been later two doors from MBZ that still attract my attention and at least Mercedes kept on building coupes. Twenty + years ago I looked at one on a used car lot. It had mechanical fuel injection and the engine controls were done by vacuum modulator devices. I didn’t know how difficult it would be to find parts and keep running right. It wasn’t cheap either. Many of these were converted to convertibles. I saw the conversion kits advertised in Hemmings. Later on I became infatuated with the SEC coupes but resisted them also. I must have been in a weakened state when I succumbed to Jaguar.
The most beautiful Mercedes? Mmm. Only -ish, I say.
It’s instructive to learn today that the coupe and sedan are actually entirely different, as I’m not sure I knew that. I should have: let’s face it, the Fintails were ugly bastards, awkward and angry in every mismatched hand-slicing dimension, even if one accepts our Dr Andreina’s Faberge-egg headlights (which I don’t, seeing lugubrious church windows instead).
But the W111 is vulnerable to detail changes that can make it look either plain, or just messy. This very car, a small-wheeled, white 220SE, can look surprisingly uninteresting in reality – I saw just one such but two weeks ago – and not very glamorous. Yet, if a sweet blue colour and 15 inch wheels and perhaps a folding tan top surmounted it, it swoops right up the ranks of the good-looking cars of the world, a ’30’s swisho job reinvented.
Now, to me, that’s not necessarily a “go figure” proposition, for this reason: a properly perfect classic, like the ’68-on Jag XJ6, looks good, in red, or blue, or purple, with wires, with vinyl, in 1st or 3rd edition, with any and every desecration you can think of to add to it. There’s something so right about the basics that they can’t be defiled.
I have repeatedly seen real-world proof that the W111 Mercedes 2-door doesn’t quite rise to that level.
Comparing a W111 and a Series I XJ-6 is the ultimate apples-to-oranges comparison.
The W111 sedan was clearly designed from the inside out, meaning starting with a seating buck and other internal dimensions. This sedan was going to have to serves as both as Germany’s near-universal taxi as well as a luxury sedan for executives and heads of state, in the form of the W112 300SE (and Lang). And then everything else in between. Presumably you know how intense the Germans are about practical things like headroom and legroom and visibility and such.
The “trapezoid” styling fad of the time suited it perfectly. The execution undoubtedly evokes different subjective responses. I deeply respect its objective qualities: these are remarkably roomy inside. Its vertical sides and windows, tall roof, end high seats maximize seating comfort and airiness. It’s a wonderful place to be inside, and for long periods of time. For e (and many others) that trumps what some folks might think about its styling details.
The Series I Jaguar XJ-6 is its polar opposite. It was designed to essentially be an E-Type saloon (not really, but to appeal to the same sense organs. Yes, it’s truly beautiful, although actually I do think its roof line is a bit too low. Not because of the atrocious headroom, but purely visually it looks a bit “chopped” to me.
As to its functional purposes, it certainly wasn’t designed to replace the London Taxi or the all those tall stately sedans that royalty and the elites had themselves driven around in. So it could afford to be have a very narrowly focused use.
I find the Series I’s interior frightfully cramped. I’ve been in them a few times, and I never want to repeat the experience, at least not at my age. Its positively claustrophobic. The rear seat is essentially unusable unless the front passengers are short and willing to move their seats way forward.
There’s a very good reason the extended wb version came along soon, but that looked terribly awkward, because the rear door was so much longer than the tiny front door. It wasn’t until the Series III with its new doors and roof that the XJ-6 looked right, the way it should have looked from the get-go. Still on the cramped side, but more doable. I’d be quite willing to fold myself into one now even.
For a car that had to be a combination of London Taxi and Checker Cab as well as Phantom V/Daimler DS420 and Cadillac Fleetwood, as well suit everything in between, the W111 fulfilled its role in life rather well. I can get past a few minor details and respect it vast capabilities. The XJ-6 Series I: a pretty face but mostly utterly useless in the real world unless you’re short and sadistic to your passengers.
There’s a place for that, but not in a comparison to a highly functional mutli-talented appliance that still manages to exude some dignity and grace in its bones.
Well, they’re both 4-door sedans with pretensions to luxury, so I’m not sure how mixed a bag of fruit that is, but by and large, I otherwise largely agree. The Jag’s role was much narrower.
As an actual car, the Jag is very flawed indeed. The engine – which weighs a good bit more than the half-as-big-again 350 all-iron Chev V8! – was twenty years old in ’68, and it had the all leaks, short-ish life and high maintenance of a ’40’s motor thereafter. I too have been in the back seat of an SWB, and it was ridiculous (and not much criticized when new, btw).
But I think you’ve taken me a bit literally. My point was that a truly beautiful car transcends details, and time: perhaps another example is the ’61 Lincoln. The W111 sedans aren’t great at all. However, the coupes like the subject of the post aren’t ugly, not at all, but by the measure that they’re a bit chameleon-like depending on colour and such, I don’t think they’re great beauties.
Mind, for use in the real world, I know which I’d have, and it wouldn’t be from Coventry!