http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rOiVvvKFrM

Wow. I had no clue that a 6-banger could swill down fuel so judiciously.

Actually its not the engine’s fault. Put the Prius engine and battery pack in there and have it push 3800 lbs (over 4K with passengers) up and down the neighborhood and highways. You’re not gonna get much better mileage. The 2.8L was too underpowered and small for the car. Now, if it were a diesel…

The reduction of CR was one of the reasons the engines lost so much power during this era. Do you have your owner’s manual? The specs may be in that. Or somewhere else. Anyway, like I said, I’m not 100% sure, and don’t have the time to go sifting through old info, but I think it’s a distinct possibility.

Rolls-Royces and Bentleys are not pretentious.

They can be ostentatious, gaudy, even grotesque (depending on how they are decked out) – but they’re never pretending to be something they’re not. Their owner might be social asperants, but they are undoubtedly rich folk. A Roller is a show of wealth obvious to everyone.

The 280s was never competing with them anyway.

And in any case, the Silver Shadow Is and IIs of the day were actually rather elegant the styling plot was only lost with the Silver Spirit.

Can’t MB at least give us the apparently rock solid C Class one of the TTAC crew salivated over on a German motorway, even if it was a stripped down model that seems relatively underpowered for the American market?

More German taxi austerity and utility (and durability), and less pointless features, electronic whiz-bang features only to go bad, and exterior jewelry please.

This is what I’m talking about; please, Daimler?

I’ll trade rock solid and MB quality of the late 70s and 80s in an austere package at a sub-30k starting price, as in German C Class form, for the gaudy, frivolous and overpriced crap they’re offering us here in the U.S.

I’m wondering. Where are you finding this info? From what I found, the M110 didn’t recieve a lower compression until Jan 1976, 9.0:1 versus 8.7:1.

http://www.w116.org/library/M110

wikipedia also shows US spec cars and also says the CR is 9.0:1

mine being a 1975 I’m sure mine is 9.0:1

When the police arrived they were searching for my dead body all around the car but I was at the house across the street calling the insurance company

I had walked away unharmed

I owe my life to MB

nuff said end of story…case closed

Keep in mind the European version had much higher compression ratio too (to run on premium), and it’s possible, though I don’t know for sure, that it had a different camshaft too. Ignition timing will certainly be different. It may take some serious doing to win back those lost 40 hp.

Good luck with your on-going project!

Ditto the W124. I own a 1993 400E with 103k miles. The build quality is so good that people still ask me if it’s a new car. I occasionally test drive new cars but I haven’t found anything I’d be willing to trade it for.

I remember the M110 sound well, it was distinctive. However, there was always a strained note to it, which you never had in the turbine-like sound of the BMW.

The carbed M110 always came with a Solex/Solex-designed Pierburg 4 barrel carb. Mine is a Pierburg and is in excellent condition and have no problems with it.

@Paul Neidermeyer (SP? Lol)

thanks Paul for correction. I am actually in the process of removing all of the emission control equipment because I have it registered as a historic vehicle in the state of nj which makes it exempt from inspection. My goal is to get as close as possible to the Euro figures. Once the carb calls quits I’m going to convert to k-jet.

ABS was introduced with the W116.

http://www.gdtm.net/MBimages/abs1978-1.htm

Not with standing how many safety features being built into a new car, idiots still managed to be carried away or worse in a bag too.
So if u didnt learn how to drive properly, God help u.

Pretty sure ABS started on the w126 s-class

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rv2-DYgzcY

One of my favorites of all time.

I don’t know the history of safety glass and ABS, so had no idea if this old of a car would have it or not. I actually don’t even like owning cars without some form of electronic stability control as that does decrease single vehicle accidents significantly.

Not to be pendantic but, laminated windshields weren’t mandated in the US until 1966.

the big Benz’s wedge shape keeps the gargantuan sedan (17″ long) from looking overwhelmingly large.

I’m sure one of the high-end model car companies made a 17″-long W116, but the drivable version is probably closer to seventeen feet (17′) long.

Regarding fuel-injected models: be careful. Critical wear-prone unrebuildable D-Jetronic parts for which no substitution is possible, such as the manifold pressure sensor, are now hideously costly. Moreover, this was Bosch’s first EFI system, and tuning it for reliable proper running is a bit of a black art. Zenith-Stromberg CD2SE carburetors bring their own nuisances, but they are quite a bit less of an expensive damnuisance than D-Jet. Fortunately, the cost and vagaries of D-Jet are confined to the sensors and (analogue) electronic brain. There’s nothing the matter with the fuel pump, pressure regulator, or injectors themselves, so any of several more modern, more tunable sense-and-control systems such as SDS can easily be retrofitted without undertaking anything like a total reëngineering of the car’s fuel system.

Nothing broke. Prices for regular maintenance were fair (at least in Germany; I don’t know how the prices in the US were/are). The BMW and Alfa owners I knew at this time had to shell out more.

Well-maintained, such a car could have done 350K kilometers (about 220K miles) without problems. That was the point were fleet cars in the ministries, for example, got sold.

In 1979 when I was 13 my dad ordered a 300SD Turbodiesel, and we picked it up European Delivery at the factory in Sindlefingen. We took a tour of the factory and got a free lunch in the cafeteria. I remember seeing all those european models and 600 pullmans at the factory, great stuff. I remember that you could still get a 116 in european trim with Velour interior, manual heat/ac, and manual windows and manual transmission. One thing strange was that you could have power windows in the front and manual in the rear.

We drove that car all over europe for about 6 weeks visiting relatives in Germany and France. Those were very impressionable times for a 13 year old. It cemented my love of europe, european cars and love of old mercedes. They are also some of my best memories of my dad and I spending time together, just the two of us.

The car as ordered was a navy metallic blue with a tan leather interior. Options were the metallic paint, leather, and sunroof….I think that was it. I remember specifically that even on an S class back then the passenger side rear view mirror was optional ($55 I think)….my dad didn’t order it. If I remember correctly the european delivery price was around $26,000…..alot of money in 1979 but considerable savings over dealer price.

We put about 2,000 miles on the car in Europe. My dad was born and raised in France/Germany so he is very comfortable driving on the Autobahn/Autoroutes, as a 13 year old I remember thinking that it was a fast car as we cruised on the Autobahn at 110 mph (only after the first 1,000 mile break in period). Compared to the majority of the american cars at the time, I guess it was.

That was the last time I saw my grandmother in France as she passed away a few years later. All in all it was a great trip.

My parents put well over 250,000 miles on that car, and only retired it as their everyday driver in 1998…….almost 20 years. Very reliable until the very end when maintenance costs started to add up.

That car was big, safe, and very comfortable. Airbags or no, I would feel very confident driving one today from a safety standpoint, and even putting my 4 year old in his car seat in the back. The car defined the term “bank vault” when you shut the doors.

Great car, great memories. How I would love to have a 116 in good condition today.

Thanks for the memories.

MB had not yet determined how to suck the life out of the residual values. They were bringing cars back at 35-40% after 4 years. In 36 months, it was a savings account. I remember getting back a couple of thousand on an early termination trade in. Couldn’t do that now with gold bars stashed in the trunk.

They were everything that was said about them.

I rode that trend right up to the shitty W140 model with it’s 120 servo motors that moved everything under power but the sun visors. Until the “brain” decided to have a stroke and render a strange combination of power accessories randomly dead. I lost count on the times I cursed that monologicservotronic BS box tucked up into the right side of the trunk wall.

The W140 was a $100,000 car when it arrived. Then MB decided it was priced too high and cut $20K off the list overnight, after the first 2 years of production. They got sued and coughed up something like a 4K ‘voucher’ for trades. Thanks a lot. Even with the voucher, if you were an early adoptee wanting to change cars, you got murdered. The days of making money on a MB lease where kaput.
BD