Name That Car Clock: Small Analog With Tachometer
In yesterday’s Name That Car Clock challenge, we went all the way back to 1965 and admired a beautiful, though admittedly nonfunctional, Oldsmobile timepiece. Today, we’re going with something from my collection of junkyard-harvested clocks that’s a bit newer. Quick, what’s the year/make/model of the car that yielded this clock to my junkyard toolkit?
1986 Mercedes-Benz 560SEL
There’s no visible VDO emblem on this gauge assembly, but that blue triangular inspection stamp on the metal frame should be familiar to those of you who have torn apart a few German instrument clusters. Yes, the W126 came with a driver’s airbag in 1986. Did you get this one right? If not, what was your guess?
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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Yep, it's a pretty close match to my SDL's, except for the redline.. I friggin love that Futura font as well.. IIRC 1986 was the first year they came standard in S-class, along with ABS? I know by 1987 both were standard as that was one of the criteria when I was looking for a diesel back in 2001..
I instantly identified it as a W126 S class Mercedes. My father was a big Mercedes fan and drove only S classes starting with the W108/W109, two W116s (280S and later a 350SEL) and an '86 300SE W126. All were beautiful vehicles and still are in my opinion. The W126 in particular is still a very strikingly handsome and elegant car.