[HN Gopher] 1972 Mercedes-Benz 600 Kompressor [video]
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1972 Mercedes-Benz 600 Kompressor [video]
Author : doener
Score : 54 points
Date : 2025-01-02 22:30 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| doener wrote:
| The list of notable owner is long.
|
| "Josip Broz Tito, who owned four 1965 LWB 6-door Pullmans, one of
| which was armoured, and two LWB Pullman landaulets, acquired in
| 1971 and 1978 respectively (both of these were of the very-rare
| type where the folding parade roof extends to cover 2/3rds of the
| vehicle top, only 9 were made with such a roof arrangement and 6
| doors, and Tito was the only statesman in the world at the time
| who had two such cars)."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_600
| dano wrote:
| "Why yes, I am a third world dictator."
| hinkley wrote:
| Actual quote from the video:
|
| > "AAAAH! You scared the crap out of me! I thought you were the
| Shah."
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| Actual quote from the video: Why yes, I am a
| third world dictator. How are you?
| hinkley wrote:
| Hydraulic power windows?? In doors?
|
| Man, I had enough trouble bleeding a hydraulic clutch properly,
| and that line was maybe 30 inches tops.
| dawidloubser wrote:
| And hydraulic power back seats, and a hydraulic sun roof (!!)
| and hydraulic power aerial, and hydraulic controls for the air
| suspension. Some models even had a hydraulic glass partition
| between driver and passengers.
|
| Absolute nuts. But the high point of dead-silent, powerful,
| smooth conveniences no matter the maintenance cost.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > Absolute nuts. But the high point of dead-silent, powerful,
| smooth conveniences no matter the maintenance cost.
|
| Wife's car broke down (probably the water pump or just a
| loose hose) on the highway while coming back from vacation.
| As it was a very busy day where we were (France), there were
| not any regular cab left so the insurance company sent us a
| driver with... a Mercedes S class 550 (not a taxi but a
| private driver: no "cab / taxi" thinggy on the roof). It's
| still as you wrote: dead-silent, powerful and silky smooth.
|
| Diesel engine but as a passenger I honestly couldn't tell,
| even though I'm a petrolhead and tend to notice these things.
| technothrasher wrote:
| I used to have a Ferrari 355 with a hydraulic soft top...
| sort of. The hydraulics (when they worked) only got the top
| part of the way up, and you had to manually finish the job.
| If the hydraulics didn't work, or the seat and window sensors
| didn't work, which was frequently, you were out of luck. If
| you disconnected the hydraulic system you could do the whole
| job manually and it was actually faster to do it that way.
| bri3d wrote:
| Mercedes love using Anything But Electronics; even into the
| 2000s they made cars with pneumatic power locks. I believe
| there was a philosophy that electronic running gear felt wrong.
|
| This trend was not universal as my W260 G-Class has only
| electronic gear (locks windows, etc.), but I believe this was
| an anomaly amongst Mercedes models.
| m463 wrote:
| looking at wikipedia: "In 1963 the Mercedes-
| Benz 600 was the most expensive car in the world."
|
| I expect there was a team of people mobilized to maintain these
| vehicles.
|
| That said, I retrofitted a hydraulic clutch on a dirt bike that
| came with a cable clutch. The precision movement was so
| wonderful. I guess by carefully sizing the "sending" and
| "receiving" cylinders, you can easily choose the exact amount
| of movement or force you want.
| hinkley wrote:
| The best thing about the British roadster I had was that if
| you were real careful you could get it moving from a
| standstill in third gear. Compared to the piece of shit
| X-shaped transmission on a piece of shit Chevy with no torque
| that I learned on, this was a godsend.
|
| Some of that was the hydraulic clutch, and part the engine -
| which descended from tractor engine designs. But the other
| thing you could do on that transmission was stomp on the
| clutch pedal, shift out of 2nd on the way to the floor, and
| into 3rd on the way back up. Where your foot was, the clutch
| plate was, down to the mm. Fastest I ever shifted a car
| without double clutching.
| dawidloubser wrote:
| I've always been into vintage Mercedes-Benz cars.
|
| A talented and wonderfully jovial mechanic ran a specialist
| workshop east of Johannesburg, in Brakpan (South Africa).
|
| For a long time he had a Mercedes 600 - similar to the linked
| video but with the M100 engine naturally-aspirated as standard -
| in the shop.
|
| That particular car, finished in a cream colour, belonged to Ian
| Smith (1919-2007), the last colonial prime minister of Rhodesia
| before it became Zimbabwe.
|
| I got to spend a lot of time with the car, including several
| drives in it, and especially seeing the mechanical bits exposed
| including the ridiculously cool (silent, powerful) hydraulics
| that operated every convenience of this car, from power windows
| to power back seat.
|
| While a Mercedes 600 indeed screams "head of state" or "pope" it
| gets my vote for the all-time, no-holds-barred, most opulent and
| classy car of all time with absolutely nothing kitsch or gangsta
| about it.
|
| A true high point of what Mercedes-Benz once was.
|
| And don't get me started on it's little brother, the W109 300SEL
| 6.3, of which there was a lovely example in the shop for a few
| months as well. It drove and operated perfectly, I had the most
| amazing solo test drive in that car, taking it to 200km/h.
|
| This was in 2003, and the 300SEL 6.3 was for sale for $3,000 and
| Ian Smith's 600 was about $12,000.
|
| God if only I had the money then! I wonder where both of those
| rarities, sitting in a small workshop in the East Rand in South
| Africa, ended up at. Probably exported to Europe or the USA.
|
| Anyway, just wanted to share that small anecdote.
|
| P.S. The Chrome, Leather, and craftsmanship of a Mercedes 600 is
| far beyond any Rolls or Bentley, of that or any other period. And
| Mercedes vehicles of that era were made to last decades and
| hundreds of thousands of miles down to every detail including all
| the rubber parts. The disposable garbage churned out in the 21st
| century simply fuel man's insane behaviour to constantly buy,
| consume, discard.
|
| There was a time when cars were made for a different modality.
| sonofhans wrote:
| I agree about Mercedes quality. The difference between them and
| other cars like Rolls or Bentley, I think, is that Mercedes
| were made to be owned and serviced by regular people. They were
| built to be exceptionally robust, and that took pride of place
| (for a while) over technical and luxury features.
|
| The biggest Merc I've had was a W126, a 300SDL, and that was
| magnificent.
| trhway wrote:
| Back then they were saying that the largest market for MB 600 in
| 90-ies was Russia. Whether it was so or not, it definitely was
| the car to drive for the mafiosos and for the government
| bureaucrats. In the bleak, dirty, poor USSR/Russia those cars
| looked like they were out-of-this-world, and in many senses they
| were. They were de-facto separating 2 castes of people - the new
| elite, so called "new Russians", from the rest. With reaching
| points of absurd sometimes as for example not much can express
| better that you're a "coolest" mafioso than driving with open top
| an MB SL 600 cabrio in -20C in St-Petersburg's strong wind with
| snow, and trying to look like you're driving on Sunset blvd
| (coincidentally the most lawless mafiosos were called "otmorozki"
| - "frostbitten [brains]")
| kyleblarson wrote:
| Recent sales on BaT: https://bringatrailer.com/mercedes-
| benz/600/?q=mercedes+600
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(page generated 2025-01-05 23:00 UTC)