Automobiles of Mercedes-Benz 1926-1939
THE CLASSIC AGE
Article by Graham Robson
Images from Daimler Archives
In just 13 years – from the official fusion of Daimler with Benz in 1926 to the outbreak of World War II in 1939 – Mercedes-Benz produced some of the best, most classic, fastest, and best-engineered cars in the world.
Not only did the company produce a series of magnificent high-speed open-top cars that would beat 100 mph, and the most impressive limousines of all time, but they also introduced well-engineered family cars of all sizes. Rear-engined machines, too? Yes. Diesel-engined passenger cars? Of course. All these, and more, came from the fertile brains of the most impressive automotive colossus in German history.
1926 Mercedes-Benz Stuttgart 300 8/38 with limousine body by Daimler Sindelfingen
Soon after the merger was formalized, rationalization set in. Although cars continued to be made at the Benz works in Mannheim for a time, it was the ever-expanding Mercedes Sindelfingen factory (south of Stuttgart) that became the automotive center. Existing Benz cars (10/30 and 16/50 models) were soon phased out in favor of “Mannheim” models (with 3.1-liter engines). “Stuttgart” models (with 2-liter engines) appeared at Sindelfingen, but the main emphasis went into developing a whole range of side-valve 4- and 6-cylinder family cars – eventually with tubular backbone chassis and independent front and rear suspensions.
1928 Mercedes-Benz 18/80 Nurburg 460
In addition, there was a mechanically unadventurous “Nurburg” range, which might have been influenced by Detroit, but this car featured a side-valve 8-cylinder engine that eventually grew to 4.9 liters (299 cubic inches). Amazingly, this technically staid machine was still being built as the 1930s drew to a close.
1929 Stuttgart 250 10/50
Prestige First
For the enthusiast and the technical connoisseur, however, eventually three different types of 8-cylinder chassis would emerge, but before that came the refinement of the supercharged alloy-blocked 6-cylinder machines, a pedigree founded by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche with the Type 24/100/140 of 1924.
Although (as Karl Ludvigsen has already pointed out) Dr. Porsche did not stay at Mercedes-Benz beyond 1928, his legacy lived on, and this explains why the same basic car, complete with its channel-section chassis rails and stiffly sprung front and rear axles, was built until 1933.
Above: A 1928 Mercedes-Benz SSK 27/170/225 hp with distinctive external headers and wheelbase shortened for competition
Because these were complex and expensive cars, with flamboyant styles in which the exhaust headers protruded through side panels in the hood, production was limited. The engines were progressively enlarged and boosted to 7.1 liters (431 cubic inches), producing up to 225 horsepower when the throttle-pedal-actuated supercharger was in use. To make them even more ultra-sporting, the engine was positioned farther back in the frame (to improve the weight distribution), and a new short frame was designed for the K (“Kurz,” or “short”) of 1926, after which came the S, the SS, the SSK, and finally the SSKL, all sold in small but prestigious numbers.
The Grand Mercedes-Benz
Nothing, however, could have been more prestigious than the massive Grosser (Grand) Type 770, the flagship model first seen in 1930, a colossal (by European standards) behemoth with a supercharged 200-horsepower 7.7-liter (467 cubic inches) overhead-valve straight-eight engine. Really intended only for sale to heads of state, dignitaries, top politicians, and favored businessmen (favored, that is, by Mercedes-Benz), the Grosser was built around an otherwise conventional chassis frame with beam axles and a 6-speed manual Maybach gearbox. These chauffeur-driven cars were always equipped with a limousine or a stately drophead-coupe body.
The Grosser was built from 1930 to 1938. This handsome early Type 770 150/200 hp limousine was built for Japanese royalty.
Because a Grosser usually weighed at least 6,000 pounds, the chauffeur must have appreciated the power-assisted brakes, though, of course, there was no power for the steering, which therefore required him to be fit, especially for maneuvering at low speeds.
Only 117 such cars were built before an even more advanced “Mk 2” Grosser was launched in 1937. This was a much more technically advanced car with oval-section tubular frame members, independent front suspension, and de Dion rear suspension. The existing 8-cylinder engine was boosted to 230 horsepower, overwhelming for the day but suited to the 155-inch wheelbase. The handbuilt limousines could measure more than 20 feet long and weigh more than 8,000 pounds. Naturally, no motoring writer ever got to drive one of these cars when it was new, but top speeds of more than 100 mph looked believable, especially when watching one cruise along a newly built autobahn at the head of an official procession.
But now to money-making business – and to remind everyone that Mercedes-Benz was building nearly 30,000 cars annually by the end of the 1930s. Ford and Opel may have been making more cars at this time, but the three-pointed star was, no question, the upper-class prestigious machine to buy, at whatever level the client could afford. Having shrugged off the excesses of Dr. Porsche’s era, this achievement was due to patient, careful, and diligent development of conventional machinery, often using side-valve engines that had been designed, then progressively enlarged, after the merger took place.
Value for Money
Technically and commercially, therefore, the first big advance came in 1931 with the launch of the original 170 model, which, with its 1.7-liter side-valve 6-cylinder engine, became the smallest and cheapest Mercedes-badged car to have been built since production resumed after the war in 1919.
A 1936 example of the Mercedes-Benz Type 170V Sedan, launched in 1931 as an affordable car for middle-class buyers
All in all, the 170 offered quite remarkable value for the money. Although the first cars could only reach approximately 55 mph, this was competitive for the period. Not only did it have independent front and rear suspension, but this was also the first time that such a combination had been offered on a series production car in this price range. Although we did not know it at the time, it was the first of a whole new range and type of Mercedes-Benz models, and it startled the rest of the European motor industry. Interestingly, swing axles of this type would be used at the rear of all future Mercedes-Benz models until the arrival of the “New Generation” range of the mid-1960s.
A 1938 Type 170V Cabriolet shows that even at the affordable end of the lineup, the company was offering well-appointed cars
Nor was that all, for this car also featured steel-disc wheels, hydraulically operated brakes, and centralized chassis lubrication. None of these features was totally new, but as a package, they proved that Mercedes-Benz engineers had been thinking, deeply, for some years before the 170 arrived. Nearly 14,000 of this type of 170 would be sold, and soon it was joined by the 200 (which had a 40-horsepower 2.0-liter engine), which would sell even better.
From 1933 it got confusing, for the new Type 290 had an even larger 68-horsepower engine, along with a different front suspension that also included coil springs. But that was just the beginning, for by 1936 the Type 200 became the Type 230 (2.2-liter engine), the Type 290 had been replaced by the Type 320 (3.2 liters), both cars sported all-synchromesh gearboxes, and the style was subtly modernized.
A 1936 Mercedes-Benz Type 200 Cabriolet A
More and more complications ensued, with a new generation of tubular chassis frame introduced and new-type 170V/230/320 ranges taking over from the still-popular types.
Two other real novelties, however, really took the pundits’ breath away. Not only was there a new diesel-engined sedan in 1936 (this was a world’s first, for no one had previously tried to sell diesel-engined private cars), but a new small rear-engined car, too. Neither was a commercial success at the time, but both demonstrated how far ahead of the conventional automotive world Mercedes-Benz was actually thinking.
The diesel was a specially developed, low-revving 45-horsepower 2.6-liter 4-cylinder unit of no great refinement, but it was economical, and powerful enough to produce 60 mph when inserted in a Type 230 chassis. It sold steadily to taxi drivers, as well as to those looking for long lives rather than brisk performance. It would not, however, be revived after World War II.
The rear-engined car, dubbed Type 130H (“H” for “Heck,” or “rear”), followed the latest German trends (the Volkswagen “People’s Car,” don’t forget, was already in the cooking pot by then) and had a simple backbone chassis frame but all-independent suspension, with rack-and-pinion steering. The engine, a 1.3-liter 4-cylinder side valve – the smallest, so far, from Mercedes-Benz – developed only 26 horsepower, and the handling has been described as “very strange,” for it was a strong oversteerer, rather like a badly worn VW Beetle or Corvair would be seen in later years. (See also The Star, September-October 2009, p. 44.)
Amazingly, the company persevered, corrected as many vices as it could, and managed to sell 10,000 of them before upgrading the design to 170H in 1935, with a 38-horsepower 1.7-liter version of the same engine. Mercedes-Benz also developed a very attractive sports-car version of the same design, with a tourer style featuring a mid-mounted engine (it was ahead of the line of the rear axle) with a single overhead-camshaft cylinder head. Very few, indeed, were ever made. (See also The Star, September-October 2010, p. 48.)
An expensive 540 K sports tourer was offered in small numbers; this is a 1936 Cabriolet B (space for passengers in rear seat).
The most glamorous, yet attainable if the money were there, of all 1930s Mercedes-Benz products were the flamboyant 540K sports tourers, which were sold in hundreds (not thousands) from 1933. All had stylish and magnificent open-top coachwork, usually with four seats – though two-seaters were also to be found – with most of those splendid, unmistakable body designs coming from Mercedes-Benz itself.
All the sports tourers used the same type of supercharged overhead-valve 8-cylinder engine, which started life at 3.8 liters and progressed to 5.4 liters, the last producing 180 horsepower. First there was the 380K, complete with coil-spring independent front suspension and swing-axle rear, then there was the 500K, and, from 1936, the 540K. The last was certainly capable of more than 105 mph, which made it as memorable as, say, the 300SLR of the 1950s. There would have been more to come, as briefly promised by the 580K preview (which had a 5-speed gearbox) in 1939, but it failed to reach production before the war brought all civilian car-building to an end.
Dominating Grand Prix
In his feature (pp. 34-39), Karl Ludvigsen has already detailed the personalities, the company, and the national politics behind Mercedes-Benz’s re-entry in Grand Prix motor racing, so I will sketch out the cars, and their achievements, covering 1934–1939.
The company had its all-new W25 single-seater ready to race by mid-1934. As first seen, it was painted white, but the paint was soon stripped off to reveal an aluminum body skin. The cars were immediately nicknamed “Silberpfeile” (“Silver Arrows”). Racing in direct competition with Auto Union (also of Germany), this supercharged 350-brake-horsepower 3,360-liter straight-eight won three important Grands Prix that year.
The W125 race cars with their 600-horsepower engine won seven of 13 major races in 1937.
In 1935, the latest W25s – now running with 400-horsepower 4-liter “eights” – were dominant, winning five major events and four less important races, with a bonus that driver Rudi Caracciola became European Champion. In 1936, unhappily, there was a setback, for a new set of short-wheelbase W25/1936 cars could not handle well enough to exploit all the potential of the latest 450-brake-horsepower/4.7-liter/287CID engines – there were only two major victories.
For 1937, though, the racing department, inspired by Rudolf Uhlenhaut, designed the new W125, which had an oval-tube chassis, longer-travel suspension, and a 600-horsepower 5.66-liter straight-eight. This, the most classic of prewar Daimler-Benz single-seaters, could reach 210 mph if suitably geared, and won seven of the 13 races it actually started. From 1937, Grand Prix cars would not be as powerful as this until the first of the turbocharged machines raced in the 1980s.
For 1938 and 1939, the authorities changed the regulations (were they, perhaps, trying to neuter the dominance of the Silver Arrows?), but Mercedes-Benz immediately produced new-shape, new-style W154 cars with supercharged V-12 470-horsepower 3-liter power units. Not only did these cars win six major races in 1938, but, with even more power, they would also win five major races in 1939.
One very special occasion came in May 1939, when the company built all-new 265-horsepower 1.5-liter V-8 W165s to compete in the Tripoli Grand Prix. Design, development, and build were completed in eight months, the cars finished first and second, and the Italian opposition was humiliated.
Breaking Records
In the 1930s, the company also found time to build a series of special cars to attack straight-line record marks. First, in 1934, a W25 achieved 197 mph at Gyon (near Budapest), then, in 1936, a much-modified W25, with streamlined coachwork, used a special supercharged 616-horsepower 5.6-liter V-12 engine to reach 228 mph on a new road near Frankfurt. Newer streamliners hit 248 mph at Frankfurt in 1937, then an amazing 269 mph with a 736-brake-horsepower-engined car in January 1938.
Built in 1939, the Type 80 was to be powered by a 3,000-horsepower
engine. It is now in the Mercedes-Benz Museum.
The most monstrous and exciting record contender of all – the Type 80 – remained unfinished as war broke out. Intended to attack outright the world land speed record (which stood at 370 mph), it was to be powered by a supercharged DB603V3 V-12 aero-engine (3,000 horsepower, 44.5 liters). It might have accomplished the goal, but world politics decreed otherwise, and it never ran on the road, track, or even demonstration circuit. But it still survives – one of the stars of the magnificent Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart.