Finbacks Forever!
Reaching back in time to build a potent rally contender
Article Randy Nonnenberg
Photography Bringatrailer.com
What was it like for those Mercedes factory drivers when they arrived at the Rallye Monte Carlo in February 1960 with their trio of comparatively massive W111 Heckflosse (rear-finned or finback) sedans? I think I know. After prepping my own Finback and taking it to events such as the California Melee, Snowball Rally, and Monte Shelton Northwest Classic Rally, the initial parking-lot introductions have been some of the most interesting I’ve ever experienced. The expressions that greet us on competitors’ faces, in response to the car we have arrived in and selected as our steed for these multi-day events, are always mixed with respect, skepticism, and disbelief.
That’s okay by me. I love that this car is the underdog and how it proves that classic Mercedes don’t have to cost a fortune. On the street, it is more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slowly, so chasing the rally machines more typical of these events keeps things entertaining. And the fact that this car is built like a tank means it is perfectly suited for shoddy public roads and day after day of hard driving, so maybe those early werks drivers were onto something.
Having a taste for competition-inspired streetcars leads one to dig around a good bit searching for parts and cars. There are models that make all the headlines, but there are also obscure models that privateers and non-factory teams campaigned in events like the Liège-Rome-Liège and the Rallye des Alpes. They are my inspiration, and all that searching eventually led me to a pastime that evolved into www.bringatrailer.com, the website I founded to share all the cars that I spotted – and loved – but couldn’t afford to buy.
A car that popped up during my daily searches was in a short Hemmings Motor News ad – no photos or email contact information. This 1967 230S lived the life that many finbacks, and indeed most classic Mercedes, seem to experience in the United States: It was garaged by a dentist for years and years and driven to get ice cream on sunny summer weekends. It was all stock and reasonably well-preserved, but hadn’t seen much use. My plans were a little bit different.
Even before the car showed up at my door, I had started collecting the right period parts to make it a better looker and performer. These finned cars look charming in stock form, but their 13-inch wheels and drum brakes look anemic and hurt performance. Most of my inspiration for this car was drawn from the Rallye Monte Carlo cars from 1960-1965. They were naturally in Euro trim, had center-mounted driving lights, larger steel wheels with no hubcaps, and always, manual transmissions.
The green car came from the factory with a floor-shifted 4-speed and no a/c or power steering, just as I suspect a privateer might have specified for a dual-purpose driver and event car back in the day. I easily sourced a set of Euro Bosch headlamps and a real German “D” oval for the trunk lid on eBay; a vintage Marchal 662 driving light for the grille and an old oval import plate were in the garage; and the big Marchal Starlux lamps were sourced new-original stock (NOS) through eBay out of Bordeaux, France. A full stainless steel exhaust system from Timevalve Manufacturing, Weber carbs, a W108 disk brake rear end, and W108 14-inch steel wheels round out the modifications. Currently, I’m adding full factory underbody skid plates that are W111-specific and were miraculously sourced from a donor car in San Diego.
The car was completed in its current form the night before the California Melee, an event for cars owned by us 99-percenters, in 2011. Unproven and untested, but with fingers crossed, my buddy and I set off and the car handled the 600-plus-mile event like a champ and the 100 F temperatures and dusty gravel stages were no issue. But trying to keep pace with Porsche 911s and BMW 2002s meant that my shoulders were sore from sawing at the wheel, and we saw smoke from the front brakes more than once – never flames. The ground clearance, sidewall height, and suspension actually instilled a great amount of confidence on the back roads, in a “damn-the-torpedoes” sort of way. The Alfa and Porsche drivers needed to be much more careful about their oil pans than we did.
Next up was the Snowball Rally in April 2012. This one was at altitude and took us around Lake Tahoe on secondary mountain roads. The aged, original paint that covers much of the car didn’t mind the road debris and chip hazards the way our shiny Porsche had the previous year. It felt like the perfect car for those roads, even if it had to be driven flat out to maintain the speed limit on the Virginia City hill-climb segment.
The last of the car’s three major events within 12 months was the Monte Shelton Northwest Classic Rally in Oregon last July. This is a more serious event, with proper stage timing and navigation required. It was our second running in the event, and despite some driver error, we were able to complete all stages and place reasonably well. The vertical ribbon speedometer made for some new challenges in speed and time management, so a Brantz trip meter might be in store for future events. Like any privateer would have done, we drove the car home from Bend, Oregon, to San Francisco after the two-day event.
So far, this has been a great car for road events and I continue to drive it daily. Other than gas mileage, there’s hardly a reason not to. The defroster is a bit weak by modern standards, but the wipers are great and visibility is generally excellent. It revs a bit high on the freeway, so I have my eye on a Getrag 5-speed swap similar to the conversion kits the Pagoda guys have developed. We’ll see if that is in the cards for 2013.
Finbacks are abundant, but most of them seem to sit stagnant rather than being driven. I’m glad I rescued this one and have used it just as some small sliver of the German population would have used it when new. If we have surprised the competitors at our driving events with our entry of choice, that’s even better.
Randy Nonnenberg is a San Francisco Bay Area Section member and co-founder and editor-in-chief of bringatrailer.com, which he describes as the place to look for “barn finds, rally cars, and needles in the haystack.” Combining a steady stream of all-star for-sale listings from the Internet, as well as those exclusively listed on his site, the website has become a must-visit for enthusiasts interested in rare, interesting, and bargain offerings. Mercedes-Benz cars and trucks are well represented, as are other marques. Enthusiasts can register to receive the BaT daily email, a sampling of the best classics on the market.
SPECIFICATIONS | 1967 W111 230S
ENGINE: 2,308cc 6-cylinder OHC, Twin 2-barrel carburetors 135hp, 145 lb-ft torque
TRANSMISSION: Floor-shift 4-speed manual
WHEELBASE: 108.2 in LENGTH: 186.5 in
CURB WEIGHT: 2,816 lbs
BRAKES: Disc front, Drum rear
FUEL ECONOMY: 14.7 mpg
MAXIMUM SPEED: 109 mph
Above: The 230S in safe, reliable condition, complete with the proper rally lights and German license plate found on eBay, was completed only one day before the fall 2011 California Melee, with its infamous dusty gravel stages. Below: The next April, we ran the Snowball Rally, a fun and casual rally across the Sierra passes as soon as they opened.
Left: Fortunately, the snow was gone by April on the 2012 Snowball Rally, at least on the lower elevations, but that didn’t make up for miles of dusty travel on secondary mountain roads, just like the challenging European rallies in the 1960s. Below: Spectacular volcanic scenery, complete with snowfields, met us at every corner on the July 2012 Monte Shelton Northwest Classic Rally in Oregon. Of course, we drove from San Francisco to Bend and back for the rally.