MERCEDES - BENZ
THE 1960s
The 280SE,SEL/300SEL 3.5/4.5 and the 300SEL 6.3 W108/W109
1967 – 1972
By Bernd S. Koehling
Copyright 2012 Bernd S. Koehling
Smashwords Edition
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CONTENT
The Cars
300SEL W109 (1967 – 1972)
The launch of the 300SEL 3.5/4.5
The launch of the 280SE/SEL 3.5/4.5
The racing history incl. AMG “Red Sow”
First of all I would like to thank you for having purchased this book and I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It is part of an e-book series that covers all cars produced by Daimler-Benz during the 1950s and 1960s.
At the end of the 1960s Daimler-Benz was regarded as an extremely well organized company with plenty of talented people, who produced high quality, dependable cars, which unfortunately all lacked a bit of emotional excitement. For sure the 600 was a fantastic and very advanced car with all the bells and whistles, but it didn't sell well. For sure the Pagoda SL was a great and fast sports tourer, but it lacked the performance of the Gullwing.
And then the 300SEL 6.3 was launched and it took the automotive world by storm. Nobody had expected such a car from Daimler-Benz, ever. On the other hand it shouldn't have been surprising, because very few companies had the means and the willpower to push such a project through. Daimler-Benz had an advantage: it had two cars, which didn't live up to their expectations. So the proposal to combine the genes of these cars into one powerful performance statement fell on positive grounds with the executive board.
The cars in question were the mighty 600 and the 300SEL with aluminum engine. The 600 was for many potential customers too big and the 300SEL performance-wise too close to its cheaper 250 series cousin.
March 2012
Bernd S. Koehling
MB 300SEL 6.3 W109 E62 (12. 1967 – 09. 1972)
MB 300SEL 3.5 W109 E35-1 (11. 1969 – 09. 1972)
MB 300SEL 4.5 W109 E45 (05. 1971– 10. 1072)
MB 280SE/SEL 3.5 W108 E35-1 (07. 1970 – 08. 1972)
MB 280SE/SEL 4.5 W108 E45 (04. 1971 – 11. 1972)
The birth of a crazy idea
The components were known, but the mixture was new and it was hot. When Daimler-Benz unveiled the new star of the W108/109 series in March 1968 in Geneva, the press was excited. They hadn't expected that from a traditional manufacturer such as Daimler-Benz. In 1967 Manfred Jantke from the German car magazine auto motor und sport wrote that the company was known for comfort and quality but not for power and speed. Even the mighty 600 with its V8 engine wasn't the fastest production car at 205 km/h (127 m/h). A Maserati Quattroporte had a top speed of 225 km/h (140 m/h), while the Iso Rivolta IR 300 could achieve 215 km/h (134 m/h). Even Rolls Royce, previously not exactly known to have set speed records with their comfortable sedans could outrun the 600 with their Silver Shadow, launched in 1965. Where was the excitement?
The excitement rested on the shoulders of an employee who had enough of this crap. His name was Erich Waxenberger, who decided after having met Heinz-Ulrich Wieselmann, at that time editor of auto motor und sport, that something needed to be done. Wieselmann had told Waxenberger in a meeting in Rudolf Uhlenhaut's office: "Waxl, you are getting old now" But "Waxl" was just 35 years old and was slightly offended. Of course Wieselmann didn't mean his age, he rather referred to the cars Waxenberger's employer built. They were built for executives, pensioners and farmers. That was the common understanding.
Waxenberger's first attempt was to attach an exhaust gas turbocharger to the 3 l six-cylinder alloy engine, but fellow engineers warned him that the engine would explode. Then he thought of the M100 engine of the Mercedes 600. The department that built the 600 wasn't fully utilized, so around November 1966 Waxenberger started to draw. Only in the evenings of course, so that nobody could see what he was up to. Once he had figured out how the engine could be placed in a W108 body, such a car wasn't available for that purpose. So he chose the body of a 250SE coupe that had fallen of the assembly line (how can that happen?). A lot on the car needed to be changed to make the new engine fit. And in order to keep everything secret, all people involved worked after office hours. The money for the project came from a VIP account normally reserved for special orders by wealthy customers.
Somewhere in 1967 the project had advanced to a state where it could finally be driven. The coupe was equipped with the M100 engine mated to a ZF five-speed manual shift and a clutch borrowed from a truck. The exhaust wasn't perfect yet, so the car was somewhat noisy. And sure enough at the first test drive on a Friday late evening they passed by the office of his boss Rudolf Uhlenhaut. Unfortunately Uhlenhaut was still working, so he heard what was going on. The next morning he called Waxenberger and mentioned that he had heard a car passing by his office with a V8 engine installed. Did he know anything about it? Waxenberger of course couldn't deny it any longer, so he admitted that he had been angered by the remarks of Wieselmann and had decided to do something about it. When Uhlenhaut remarked that the engine wouldn't fit into the coupe, Waxenberger just smiled and said that it was installed in the car and was working.
E. Waxenberger (to the right) talking to a fellow engineer
That was it, Uhlenhaut wanted to test-drive the car next day Sunday. But the car wasn't ready yet for a test-drive Uhlenhaut-style. So Waxenberger called up his mechanic and asked him to un-install the front brakes, so that his boss can't use the car on Sunday. The test happened three days later and Uhlenhaut was thrilled. Being the ever interested technician he of course mentioned that there were a couple of issues that still needed to be addressed, such as the comfort and road handling in fast corners, but overall he just loved it. In two weeks, he mentioned to Waxenberger, the car should be ready to be presented to the board. In two weeks? That's impossible! But after plenty of overtime work, the car was ready and was shown to the board. The reaction was as positive as Uhlenhaut had expected. except for the board member in charge of sales. he said the car would be too dangerous to be driven on public roads. Maybe that guy had never driven a car properly, Waxenberger just thought. And we can't sell more than maybe 50 of such a car, the board member added further.
As the project was now official, funding was secured and it underwent the routine development and testing circles of any other new Daimler-Benz car. Main emphasis was on comfort, air conditioning, brakes and even more testing just to see how the coupe would cope with the bigger and heavier engine. Comfort meant that the five-speed manual shift, which wasn't really suited to deal with the torque of the engine, was replaced with the automatic transmission of the 600. At the end it was realized that the coupe wasn't ideal for the engine and the 300SEL body with air-suspension was chosen instead. At one of these tests shortly before the new car was launched in Geneva, Waxenberger used the 250SE coupe and drove from Stuttgart to his parent's home in Miesbach, Bavaria. And as it happened, he passed by a Porsche Carrera on the autobahn. Naturally the Porsche driver did, what most Porsche drivers would do in such a situation, he accelerated to overtake this Mercedes coupe again. But this coupe couldn't be overtaken, it was too fast for the Porsche. A few miles later Waxenberger had to stop for fueling. Sure enough the Porsche stopped right next to him. The driver got out and asked Waxenberger, what special car he would be driving? Special car, asked Waxenberger, have a look at the badge on the trunk lid, it reads 250SE. The Porsche driver couldn't believe it. He said that he was driving 232 km (145 m/h) and still couldn't overtake the Mercedes coupe. Waxenberger looked at the man and remarked that his Porsche might be missing two cylinders.