Mercedes-Benz SL and SLC 107-Series 1971-1989

The Complete Story

Andrew Noakes

• Publisher: Crowood
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781785003660
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Automotive Transportation & Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

As one of the most remarkable models that Mercedes-Benz has ever created, the 107-series was a sales success for nearly two decades and has been an automotive icon for far longer. Elegant styling, effortless performance and superior build quality are central to the appeal of the Mercedes-Benz R107 SL and C107 SL models. This book details the complete history of the model from its design in the late 1960s, its launch in 1971, its development through the 1970s and 1980s to the end of production in 1989. Accompanied by over 250 archive pictures and original images, Mercedes-Benz SL and SLC 107-Series 1971-1989 - The Complete Story reveals the story behind the racing SLs and the works rally SLCs, and provides a valuable guide to buying and running these cars. Superbly illustrated with 260 archive and original colour and black & white photographs.

CHAPTER ONE

THE SL LINEAGE

Of all the great names in motoring and motor sport, few have achieved as much as Mercedes-Benz, and none can boast such an extraordinary breadth of ability. The Mercedes-Benz brand has become synonymous for quality and engineering excellence across a wide range of types, sizes and applications of vehicles. What other brand not only makes passenger cars and commercial vehicles, but also builds taxicabs and tractors – and puts the same logo on its limousines as it does on its off-road trucks? Most automotive companies would be content to excel in one area. Mercedes does it all over the automotive spectrum.

The origins of the marque date back to the 1880s, and the stories of three men – and one woman – who between them founded and named the companies that came together to create the Mercedes-Benz brand.

THE PIONEERS

Carl Benz was born in the German town of Mühlburg, near the border with France, in 1844. He was the son of a railway engine driver. After studying engineering at the nearby Karlsruhe Polytechnic he set up his own business, Benz & Cie, a few miles north at Mannheim in Baden-Württemberg in 1880. There he made two-stroke stationary engines to power pumps, mills and electricity generators. In 1885 he put one of his engines into the back of what was little more than a pedal-powered tricycle, for which he was awarded a patent in January 1886. He was soon selling copies, many of them going to France, and by the turn of the century Benz & Cie was the biggest carmaker in the world with total production exceeding 2000 cars. By then the company had moved on to four-wheeled vehicles, but they still had much in common with the original tricycle of a decade before. Meanwhile competitors were now building more sophisticated machinery, and it took Benz a long time to realize that his company’s designs had to evolve to keep up.

Carl Benz built the world’s first successful motor car, and with it one of the brands that became Mercedes-Benz. DAIMLER

Gottlieb Daimler, the son of a baker, was born in Schorndorf, near Stuttgart, in 1834. He learned his engineering as an apprentice gunmaker before working in a series of engineering firms and studying at the Stuttgart Polytechnic. By 1872 he was technical director of the engine manufacturer Gasmotorenfabrik Deutz near Cologne, working with chief engineer Wilhelm Maybach to refine the four-stroke engine that had been created by Deutz founder Nikolaus Otto. But Otto opposed their ideas for a new ‘high speed’ engine, so in 1882 Daimler and Maybach left the Deutz company and set up in business for themselves in a greenhouse behind Daimler’s home in the Stuttgart suburb of Cannstatt. There they further developed their ideas for new engines and by 1886 had built a motorized coach. In 1897 they moved the engine from the rear of the car to the front in the new twin-cylinder Phoenix, then developed a 4-cylinder engine for greater performance.

The patent for Benz’s original car. DAIMLER

The call for more speed had come from the third key figure in what would become the Mercedes-Benz story, Emil Jellinek. Consul-General of the Austro-Hungarian empire in Nice, Jellinek was also an unofficial dealer for Daimler’s cars in the south of France, selling them to his wealthy friends and contacts. Jellinek believed he would do more business in France if the cars had a less German-sounding name. Another prompt for the name change came from French car company Panhard-Levassor, which was importing Daimler engines into France to power its own cars and had acquired the French rights to the Daimler name. Jellinek took to calling the cars he was selling ‘Mercédès’ after his ten-year-old daughter, and the name was eventually adopted by Daimler for all its cars. Under the technical guidance of Maybach, Mercedes cars adopted features that set the pattern for modern cars, from the front engine and rear drive layout to details like a steering wheel instead of a tiller, pressed-steel chassis members and high-pressure cooling.

A replica of Benz’s 1886 motor car. DAIMLER

Gottlieb Daimler was one of the early pioneers of gas engines. His company merged with Benz’s in 1926. DAIMLER

Emil Jellinek with his daughter Mercédès, from whom the brand gets its name. DAIMLER

The 35hp Mercedes of 1901 designed by Wilhelm Maybach laid down a pattern for the modern car. DAIMLER

The Daimler company flourished, despite the death of Gottlieb Daimler in 1900. A larger factory in the Untertürkheim district of Stuttgart was established in 1901. Maybach left the company in 1907 after clashing with Daimler’s son Paul, who succeeded him as chief engineer. Then in 1909 a new logo was adopted: a three-pointed star, signifying that Daimler’s engines were used on land, on the sea and in the air.

MERCEDES AND BENZ MERGE

Development of the famous Mercedes-Benz logo. The original three-pointed star signified that Daimler engines were used on land, on sea and in the air. DAIMLER

With the advent of war in 1914, both Daimler and Benz turned to military work, producing vehicles and aero engines. When hostilities ended in 1918 the car industry was in tatters, with damaged and disorganized production facilities, and little demand for new cars either at home or abroad. The Daimler and Benz companies realized their best option was to work together. In May 1924 they entered into a cooperative agreement, and two years later they agreed a full merger, eventually creating Daimler-Benz Aktiengesellschaft (AG). The new company’s logo combined the three-pointed star of Daimler with the laurel wreath used by Benz. The cars were produced under the name Mercedes-Benz, and quickly became synonymous with fine engineering and faultless build quality. Daimler-Benz went from strength to strength, becoming a major part of Germany’s industrial might: by 1935 the company accounted for nearly a third of the country’s automotive exports.

The famous SSK, with star driver Rudolf Caracciola on the way to another win. DAIMLER

Mercedes-Benz cars were not only successful in the marketplace: they also became regular winners in motor sport. From the earliest days of Mercedes the cars had competed in hill-climb events, and in the 1920s the supercharged Mercedes-Benz SSK designed by Ferdinand Porsche became the car to beat. In the 1930s Mercedes-Benz responded to a new 750kg upper weight limit for racing cars with the W25, beginning a series of streamlined racing cars which, alongside those of Auto Union, made Germany the dominant force in Grand Prix racing.

Mercedes racing cars were hard to beat between the wars. At the Tripoli Grand Prix in May 1939 eventual winner Hermann Lang’s W165 leads the sister car of Rudolf Caracciola away from the start. DAIMLER

When war came again in 1939 Daimler-Benz became a major contributor to the Nazi war effort, a key role being as a manufacturer of fuel-injected aero-engines for Luftwaffe aircraft, though it also produced numerous military trucks and staff cars. The company became an important target for the Allies, and Daimler-Benz’s three main factories around Stuttgart were almost totally destroyed by bombing.

POST-WAR REBUILDING

Car production did not restart until 1947, and then with nothing more exciting than a mildly updated version of the pre-war 170 saloon. But it was enough to get Daimler-Benz going again and generated vital cash flow that helped to fund development of a new, bigger saloon car, the 300, with the American market in mind. The 300 was unveiled at the first post-war Frankfurt motor show in April 1951. The design team led by Karl Wilfert had gone for a very modern style with integrated front wings and only vestigial running boards, but had kept the characteristic Mercedes grille under orders from Daimler-Benz chief Dr Wilhelm Haspel. It was the biggest and fastest car that post-war Germany had yet produced, and it found favour with heads of state, celebrities and VIPs all over the world. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright had one, as did film stars Yul Brynner and Gary Cooper, James Bond film producer Albert R. Broccoli and crooner Bing Crosby. Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia and President Jawaharlal Nehru of India used 300s as their official cars, as did West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who liked the model so much and used it so extensively that the...