Where has the bonnet gone?

When you drive an older car and watch through the wind screen you will most like see something you can't spot anymore when you drive a modern car - the bonnet. Modern aerodynamics and current design trends make them disappear from the driver's eye. Too bad, as seeing the bonnet makes a car easier to drive and park. The picture shows the bonnet of a Mercedes 300 SL (R107) but you can look at many older cars and you will spot the same. Today you need a park distance control system to "hear" the car, when you park it to compensate for you eye being able to actually see the dimensions of the car.

300 SL - No Good Bye Forever

I just found this article in an old issue of Motor Revue (1989). Fritz B. Busch, one of the best known car journalists and also museum owner in Germany, writes about the Mercedes 300 SL (R107). Now, this alone probably wouldn't be worth a blog note. But let me quote (and translate) Mr. Busch: "... before I had closed the door the girl asked: What do you think, will this car become an oldtimer? I wasn't unprepared. It was the same question my neighbour had asked before, my friends and others, including my wife Liane. ... It was the question that was in the air. I answered with a clear nodding and said 'that's for granted'. Because this car does have only two seats, a fabric top, more than 24 meters of chrome and it is a Mercedes. ... 'one day people will bow in front of this car like they do it with a Gullwing.' ...". And so on. What is interesting that Mr. Busch wrote this article in 1989, the last year the car was produced. Today, we look back 21 years, and the car is an established classic car. And interestingly, at least in Germany, the 300 SL fetches the highest prices of all the R107 series, more than the 8 cylinders and more than the early models. So Mr. Busch was at least partially right, and none of the R107 successors will be able to redo what the R107 300 SL has achieved, I bet. Only the future can tell, though.

Car heating as an extra? Not unusual in 1960

I am looking at a car price compilation of 1960, German cars available in Germany. Many brands have disappeared, i.e. Auto Union (now Audi), Borgward, DKW, Goliath, Lloyd, Messerschmitt, NSU, to name a few. Prices range from DM (Deutsche Mark) 2650 (for a BMW Isetta 250) to DM 34000 (for a Mercedes 300 SL Roadster, that by the way was more expensive than the Gullwing version for DM 33250). By the way the Volkswagen Beetle Standard was DM 3790. DM basically were replaced by the Euro 1:2, meaning for 2 DM you received 1 Euro. But it's not the prices that are astonishing, but the fact that an extra was listed for roughly half of the cars that nobody would pay something for today - the heating. If you were buying for example an Opel Rekord for DM 6760 you had to pay DM 160 to also get the heating. The prices for the heating were ranging from DM 45 (BMW Isetta) to DM 225 (Borward Isabella). Translated into today's world this would mean you would have to add between Euro 500 to 2000 to the list price to receive a heating system with your car - unthinkable! That's how things have changed.

First open ride with the 300 SL after a long cold winter

It definitely was a long winter, and cold it was! It must be three months since I enjoyed any of my classic cars on the road. Today, for the first time, it was somewhat warm again (10 degrees celsius), but more importantly roads were dry and the salt had been washed away last week. There's still a lot of snow on the mountains, as you can see on the pictures, but Spring is clearly approaching.
Oh, it felt good to have again the wind in the hair and change gears manually, feel the mechanics of a somewhat dated car. Yes, I agree, the Mercedes 300 SL isn't really a proper classic car yet. It's a bit too young, but it will reach 30 years soon and the design already counts 40 years by now. Cars like the R107 series are difficult to judge, as they have had such a long lifespan. It's a bit similar to the Morgan Plus 4 or Plus 8, just not that extreme.
Anyway, regardless of this, the drive was a joy! And it was such a relief that it fired up the first time and run as if there hadn't been any winter break. The SL has many contemporary habits and feels fairly modern, but still has a lot of the elements I like with classic cars, starting with a well articulated engine sound, manual controls for everything, lots of light in the cabin, instant feedback from anything. Hopefully we will soon again have a warm and nice weather weekend, so that I can continue to unwrap cars and get them back on the road!

The Mercedes 300 SL R107 - an ever green classic car

When Mercedes replaced the famous Pagoda (230 SL - 280 SL, R113) with the R107 many people were disappointed. The new car was heavier, larger and seemed to look less elegant. Despite the not very enthusiastic welcome the R107 series though was built for 18 years (1971 to 1989) and the number of cars delivered to customers was an impressive 237'286. Most of them had 8 cylinder engines (350 SL, 380SL, 420 SL, 450 SL, 500 SL and 560 SL), only 38'879 6 cylinders (280 SL, 300 SL) were built. The 300 SL was introduced in 1985 and built until the end of production of the R107 series. In total 13'443 cars were built.
The reason the car got bigger and heavier than its predecessor was mainly because of increased safety standards. In that aspect the R107 was quite innovative and exemplary. ABS (anti lock brakes) and airbags for examples were on the options list very early.
Looking at the car today it's actually a quite elegant shape and the use of chrome makes it look older than it actually is. The latest R107 SLs just got 20 years old, while the first ones now are almost 40 years old.
When you drive an SL today, the car feels fairly modern despite its age, especially when you have chosen one of the latest cars, as in 1985 the suspensions and the interior were upgraded.
The R107 even had quite an impressive movie career, starring in "Hart to Hart" (driven by Stephanie Powers), "American Gigolo" (driven by Richard Gere), Dallas (driven by Victoria Principall) and visible in many many other productions.
Most of the R107 were delivered with an automatic gear box. Only the 6 cylinders and the 350 SLs could be ordered with a manual gear box. It's estimated that only 10 to 15% of the 300 SLs allow for manual gear shift despite a fuel consumption advantage of 8 to 20% against the automatic thanks to five gears and lower revs.
The silver 300 SL pictured is a 1987 model, equipped with the 4 seat option, passenger side mirror (yes, that was an extra) and radio preparation. Delivered in Germany it has been brought to Switzerland in 2009.
R107 came with a standard hardtop to make the car better usable in the winter or for highway traffic. The picture here shows the three ways you could drive an SL.
Many people say that the R107 was one of the last (if not the last) Mercedes that was built by true engineers not by marketing people. Everything you touch feels solid and the sound of the closing door is unmatched. Even after 20+ years the car feels almost like new and certainly is capable of another 20 years easily. With this and the fact that it has a catalyst on board, an R107 SL may actually be one of the more ecological cars on earth.

Is the end of the car mirror coming?

For many years we are now used to look into our mirrors in our car before we overtake, change lanes or park. We are trained to do so, it was a key element of the car driving exams we had to go through. Interestingly, vintage cars in the early 20iest century didn't have mirrors at all. And it was until the 70ies outside mirrors to become a standard. I can even remember the time when you had to pay extra money for the second (passenger side) mirror. Just as an example the passenger side mirror for a 1987 Mercedes 300 SL (R107) was in the price list for DM 119.70 (roughly 60 Euros). The mirrors also got more and more clever and got for example darker when strong lights were approaching from the back. The also could be electrically adjusted and you could even store their position with a "memory" system. Depending on the driver they readjusted magically.
The outside mirrors though come with a significant disadvantage. They influence aerodynamics in a negative way, increase the drag factor and the overall size of the car. That's why mirrors look quite different today compared to what we were used in the 80ies for example. So there are good reasons to make them very small and in many of the prototypes presented these days they are replaced by small cameras and a display in the car. There are other innovations that help to make driving more secure, for example radar systems that help to prevent the blind spot, making the mirrors less important. So it could well be that future cars won't have outside mirrors any more. It will take some time to adapt to the new systems though. If you have ever swapped from left hand driven cars to right hand driven cars you know what I mean. If the mirror isn't where you expect it you always look to the wrong corner.

Where has usability gone in car design?

People appreciate all the luxury coming with nowadays' cars. But are they really more usable? I just drove from Berlin to Switzerland, with a Mercedes 300 SL, a car designed at the end of the 60ies, built for 18 years until 1989 and a modern classic car today. It's also an impressive car from a usability point of view.
It starts with the fact that you can see everything, even with the hardtop mounted. You even can see the cover of the trunk when you are going backward. No need for cameras or "park distance control" systems.
The manual is short, really short. All what you need to know to operate the car is covered on less than 60 pages. Have you looked at the manual of the son's son of the 300 SL - the 350 SL built today? You need to read through hundred of pages before you are able to properly adjust the air condition. Actually you can enter and drive the 300 SL from the 80ies without even reading the manual at all, everything is where you would expect it. And there's not that much to fiddle around with anyway. There's no airscarf, no air condition, no ESP, no park distance control, no navigation system, no distance radar, no .... It's basically a car with four wheels. But everything you need for your daily motoring is there, even mirrors that' can be adjusted sitting in the car, the right one electrically the left one mechanically. Good so. The heating can be operated with basically two wheels, you won't need a manual to understand the concept.
And while there may be good reasons that the windows in modern cars are so small, mainly because of passive safety considerations, I prefer the "active" safety of being able to see everything out of the old car, be it children, other cars or a bicycle.
Maybe the designers of modern cars should have a ride in one of these older classics from time to time to have a benchmark on usability.