Junkyard Find: 1966 Mercedes-Benz 230
The Mercedes-Benz W110 makes a good endurance racer, and plenty of examples are still on the street. I see a few of these tailfin-equipped cars in wrecking yards, but most of them are so picked over and/or obliterated by 500,000 miles of hard use that I don’t bother photographing them. Here’s one that’s still pretty complete, spotted in a Denver yard last week.
Much of the interior is gone, but the seats are still present and in very nice condition.
Either these were recovered at some point or Mercedes-Benz was using some very impressive upholstery materials in these cars.
With 118 horses, the M180 I6 was not going to propel this car to many dragstrip victories, but it was smooth and reliable.
Not many cars still had tailfins in the second half of the 1960s.
The bubble-style rear glass was also becoming dated.
Would the threat of a $200 reward scare off a potential car thief today?
Not worth restoring, even in rust-free condition, but it’s still saddening to see a solid car like this get crushed.
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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I'm not terribly familiar with older Benzes, but I had this confused with the W111. Speaking of which, one of the BAT guys has a beautiful forest green W111, which was featured in one of the early Petrolicious videos. Gorgeous car. http://vimeo.com/54350844
No pix of the instruments that move vertically instead of in a clockwise arc? For shame! My friend had one of these in mint green, with the dash and possibly the whole interior in an ivory color. Loved those tailfins, loved that car.