Name this car....

[ramarren]

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1960 Lancia Apia Zagato GTE to be precise.  I knew you'd get it.  Your turn.

 

 

There's one of these that shows up at the local "All Italian Day Automobile and Motorcycle Show" in October. It is an extraordinarily beautiful little car. 

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[wlaidlaw]

That is a lovely body but although the Appia engine is a very sweet little engine, it only produces about 37 BHP, so it must have seemed a touch underpowered. The V4 narrow angle engine is tiny. You look under the bonnet in an Appia and sitting in the middle surrounded by space is this tiny object which looks about size of the box that 5 reams of copier paper come in. I was always surprised nobody put it in a motorbike as it is so small.

 

There was one of these pretty Lancia Coupés on the Tour Britannia Rally I did in 2012. The timing of the road sections was absurdly tight, that is the non-competitive sections between special stages, which if you are over the maximum lateness of 15 minutes over bogey time, you will still get penalty points even though it is non-competitive.  We only just made one long 80 miles road section within the penalty time, as we had stopped for fuel and we were in a seriously quick, ex Le Mans and Goodwood TT wining car. The poor elderly gentleman driving the Lancia arrived with sweat pouring off him and complaining bitterly that even with Fangio driving, he did not think the Lancia would have made the bogey time + 15 minutes. 

 

 I will have a look around to see what I can find. 

 

Wilson

Edited September 18, 2016 by wlaidlaw

[ramarren]

Oh yes: the Appia is slow but responsive. A beautiful car designed for a less demanding time. 

 

OT: My 2000 Merc SLK230 was rear-ended last Monday. The cost of repairs has killed it ... and even if the insurance company were to go ahead with it, I don't believe that the complex top and trunk lid mechanism can ever be put back to "as it was" condition with the amount of damage it's suffered. 

 

So a photo in this thread to honor my wonderful little "Yellow Peril" passing on: 

 

 

While I await the final verdict and salvage offer from the insurance company, I'm hunting up a replacement. I'm going to jump to the 2006 SLK280. Likely something like this: 

 

 

Onwards! 

Edited September 18, 2016 by ramarren

[mikemgb]

Oh yes: the Appia is slow but responsive. A beautiful car designed for a less demanding time. 

 

OT: My 2000 Merc SLK230 was rear-ended last Monday. The cost of repairs has killed it ... and even if the insurance company were to go ahead with it, I don't believe that the complex top and trunk lid mechanism can ever be truly put back to "as it was" condition with the amount of damage it's suffered. 

 

So a photo in this thread to honor my wonderful little "Yellow Peril" passing on: 

 

 

While I await the final verdict and salvage offer from the insurance company, I'm hunting up a replacement. I'm going to jump to the 2006 SLK280. Likely something like this: 

 

 

Onwards! 

 

Sorry to hear that! My wife was rear ended in hers a few years ago too, it was repaired but she never felt comfortable in it afterwards so traded it.

[wlaidlaw]

Lou, 

 

I sympathise with you, it is always horrible when you get an old friend of a car damaged beyond repair.

 

However even worse is when the insurance insist on repairing it even though you know it will never be right. In 1980, I had a Fiat Abarth Mirafiori Rally Stradale, one of only 500 made. At that time I moved to a new company who insisted in giving all directors a company car whether they wanted one or not, so I decided to put the Abarth into long term dry storage, as I felt it could become quite valuable. It was six months old and had only done 5000 miles. My wife borrowed for a day while her car was being serviced and when it was parked in the staff car park at the hospital she worked at, a 25 ton building works truck misjudged his speed and hit it really hard on one rear corner lozenging the whole car and wrecking the space frame at the rear which carried the IRS. As it was irreplaceable, the insurance company insisted on repairing it. It was horrible and I refused to accept it back. I got a report from Fiat to say that it was unusable and unsafe. It took four years of solicitors toing and froing before the truck's insurers finally stumped up the cost of the car new. Of course now they are worth around £100,000 for a low mileage one like mine was. 

 

Wilson

[wlaidlaw]

I don't think this one is exactly going to the tax brains of the car experts on this forum so I want the exact model designation. 

 

Wilson

 

 

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[Michael Hiles]

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This is clearly a Mercedes Benz model W108 or W109. Probably a W108 and probably a late version (280 SE or SEL) - I think the 109s had a horizontal chrome strip just below the hood lid. My father owned (and I loved) a 250 SE.

[wlaidlaw]

This is clearly a Mercedes Benz model W108 or W109. Probably a W108 and probably a late version (280 SE or SEL) - I think the 109s had a horizontal chrome strip just below the hood lid. My father owned (and I loved) a 250 SE.

 

Very very close but no banana. Bigger engine. 

 

Wilson

[Toshack10]

So it's the 3.5 v8. Coupe, or cab?

 

Sorry to hear about the SLK - have a look on SLK World as they have an active community of fans of SLKs of all hues.

[wlaidlaw]

So it's the 3.5 v8. Coupe, or cab?

 

Sorry to hear about the SLK - have a look on SLK World as they have an active community of fans of SLKs of all hues.

 

The deceased SLK was Mike's not mine. 

 

I think I would have to call that a dead heat between you and Mike. It's full designation is a 1970 W112 280SE-3.5 (stupid name!) Cabriolet. This one has recently come back from Mechatronik in Germany, where they did a total mechanical rebuild, with a lot of improvements (better brakes, better shock absorbers, less squidgy bushes in the steering etc etc) plus a repaint and re-trim. Still would not be my choice of car, although it does drive a lot better than it did. Very definitely a boulevard cruiser, albeit a handsome one. The gearbox is probably its weakest point. For some odd reason, Mercedes kept using a fluid flywheel, whereas the rest of the world had changed to torque converters 15 to 20 years earlier. 

 

Would either or both of you like to post a challenge. 

 

Wilson

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[Michael Hiles]

I think the baton goes to James.

 

This cab is one of the few cars that gets me weak in the knee. In my eye, it is the most beautiful car Mercedes ever produced, and one of the loveliest anyone ever made. While I never owned one like this, the various Mercedes I have owned or driven had transmissions that normally started in 2nd gear and pulled away really smoothly (turbine-like), as opposed to the neck snapping effects of more common torque converter units. For a more aggressive start, first gear was selectable. I think my opinion was a minority.

[wlaidlaw]

I think the baton goes to James.

 

This cab is one of the few cars that gets me weak in the knee. In my eye, it is the most beautiful car Mercedes ever produced, and one of the loveliest anyone ever made. While I never owned one like this, the various Mercedes I have owned or driven had transmissions that normally started in 2nd gear and pulled away really smoothly (turbine-like), as opposed to the neck snapping effects of more common torque converter units. For a more aggressive start, first gear was selectable. I think my opinion was a minority.

 

My father's retirement present when he retired in 1962, was a Mercedes 220 SEC, the early coupé version of the W112 and very similar but with big one piece headlights. I remember when he came down to Edinburgh to collect it from his friend David Murray at Merchiston Motors (Ecurie Ecosse) and came to take me out from school that day. It was the first time I had seen a car with electric windows and even more impressive, an electric aerial which went up all by itself when you turned the radio on - wow! Within 10 days, a drunk driver had crashed into the side of it and sent it into a spin shuttling between stone walls. My father should have insisted on a write off but he had already spent nearly a year on the waiting list for this car, so agreed to it being repaired. The good news was this was one of the early cars with seat belts and he and my mother were not injured. The car was never correct afterwards. I saw it about 12 years later in London, having recognised the number plate: DSE 909. It was in a very sad state with rust, mismatched panels, bald tyres and sagging suspension. It was being run by some plasterers who were working in my office. They had bought it for £100. 

 

Wilson

[Toshack10]

Thanks - I've always fancied the Mechatronik Pagoda: a V6 SLK/Pagoda resto-mod

 

Easy one, closely cropped.

 

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[wlaidlaw]

I am doing the Spice Road Rally in north east Thailand and north west Myanmar in November this year, in a 1969 ex-works African Safari Rally Pagoda 280SL, that has recently had an engine rebuild by Mechatronik.  It was originally heavily modified for rough road rallies with a seam welded body, a full length bolted in steel under-tray with reinforcing ribs, blueprinted dry sump engine, full roll cage, big fuel tank, cockpit adjustable ride height with air suspension and so on. We run it on Mercedes van steel wheels and light truck 8 ply radial tyres to prevent punctures and wheel breakages. Mercedes ran it with the bolted in hard top but we use it with the soft top. We have replaced the horrible and very noisy straight cut gears 5 speed competition gearbox with the much nicer standard 4 speed box but added an electric overdrive, which works on third and top. I will post some pictures when I get back.

 

We would have used my 1977 911 RSR group 4 rally car, which is nice on these rallies in very hot countries because you don't get any heat soak from a front engine and I added a sun roof for extra ventilation. It is a whole lot quicker than the very heavy 280SL for overtaking trucks. Sadly it is still waiting after 18 months, for Porsche to come up with the correct competition gearbox synchro hubs, which finally wore out during the Scottish Malts rally in 2014. Porsche said that the latest standard ones would work. They lasted 20 road miles before second gear hub split with the torque. Porsche is paying but I would like my car back!

 

Wilson

[ramarren]

Beautiful SE Cabriolet! They were quite a thing for a bit in the "cruise around and look cool" class. I seem to recall the bodies on the Cabriolet's were coach-built. Is that correct? 

 

The deceased SLK was Mike's not mine. 

 

 

Actually, it was mine. 

 

Thanks, James L. I've been a subscriber on SLK World for some years. I don't participate too much, but there have been some good tips passed there. 

 

The 2006 SLK280 I looked at on Friday afternoon had the equipment I wanted and seemed in decent enough condition to warrant an inspection, so yesterday I took it for a test ride and brought it to my mechanic for a thorough examination. He found the usual issues for a car of this age and mileage, nothing terribly serious... seemed a sound and fundamentally undamaged example. I fixed a price with those maintenance fixes in mind, made an offer, and (after a little back-and-forth) drove it home. 

 

It's black with a light gray/black accents leather interior. It has the 3L six, the power interior option (seats, steering wheel), the Harmon-Kardon stereo system, and the seven-speed automatic transmission. One of the previous owners/goofballs removed the badging from the trunk and dark tinted the side windows so it looks like a Stealth Spaceship ... google translates that to "Heimlichkeit-Raumschiff" ... good name for it. The engine makes a lovely, tightly packed ripping sound as it winds up the tach, the whole car feels very smooth and solid. A fitting replacement for Die Gelbe Gefahr. 

 

Happy again. Some work to do on it (fresh engine mounts, transmission maintenance, lots of little details) to bring it up to my spec, but I will enjoy the process and the car. Pictures soon ... 

[Michael Hiles]

Pagoda 280SL...

 

Surprisingly competent (and pretty) successor to the 300SL.

 

Wikipedia quote: "Mercedes-Benz Chief Engineer Rudolf Uhlenhaut, who was as competent behind the wheel as any racing driver, demonstrated the capabilities of the 230 SL on the tight three-quarter mile Annemasse Vétraz-Monthoux race track in 1963, where he put up a best lap time of 47.5 seconds vs. 47.3 seconds by Grand Prix driver Mike Parkes on his 3-liter V12 Ferrari 250 GT."

 

Not too shabby.

[wlaidlaw]

Surprisingly competent (and pretty) successor to the 300SL.

 

Wikipedia quote: "Mercedes-Benz Chief Engineer Rudolf Uhlenhaut, who was as competent behind the wheel as any racing driver, demonstrated the capabilities of the 230 SL on the tight three-quarter mile Annemasse Vétraz-Monthoux race track in 1963, where he put up a best lap time of 47.5 seconds vs. 47.3 seconds by Grand Prix driver Mike Parkes on his 3-liter V12 Ferrari 250 GT."

 

Not too shabby.

 

Particularly when you consider the weight penalty of the generously proportioned Herr Uhlenhaut against the skinny Mike Parkes   I don't know how he did it as they are not particularly easy to drive quickly being quite "wallowy" and get very tail happy at the limit. Part of it would be down to the brakes, which are good on the pagoda cars and awful on a 250GT, with their skinny Dunlop steel discs and the calipers, which were originally designed to be used with a high pressure hydraulic system like Citroens used and the D-Type Jaguar, which has a pump driven off the back of the gearbox. 

 

Wilson

[stuny]

All this discussion hid James' puzzle car. Panamera?

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[Toshack10]

Not the Panamera

[pippy]

Is it the four-door 911 -style prototype which was shown on the 'Earls Court' display at the Goodwood Revival a few weeks ago?

Can't remember the model designation but 989 comes to mind...

 

Pip.