Throughout my junkyard travels, I doc plenty of discarded Mercedes-Benzes from the 1970s and 1980s. Previously Stuttgart equipment is a bit more durable to find, nevertheless I had managed to operate throughout a few of 1950s W120 proto-E-Class sedans prior to now. This is the third boneyard W120 to fall right before my digital camera: a incredibly good 1960 180b in a Denver lawn.
The W120 (and W121, which was identical besides for engine style) was created from 1953 through 1962 and was the to start with unibody Mercedes-Benz. It is the immediate ancestor of the current-working day E-Class, beginning a line of midsize vehicles that bundled the famous W110, W114 and W123 as the a long time went by.
This one particular experienced been popping up on Denver-location on line classifieds for very a even though, with an inquiring rate of all-around $500. There were being no takers, and the vendor finally gave up and offered it to Select Your Part. Junkyard purchasers bought most of the inside and sprint parts (or perhaps someone purchased it for pieces, then sent the rest on that final tow-truck trip), so some of its pieces will live on in other W120s.
There isn’t really rust to discuss of, although a several holes experienced been slice into the floor for some cause.
The engine is a 1.8-liter straight-4, rated at 78 horsepower and 107 pound-ft.
If you believe the Nissan L-collection motor resembles this one particular, you might be appropriate. The Prince Motor Firm accredited Mercedes-Benz engine technological know-how to use in the new Skyline (certainly, the ancestor of that Skyline), which finished up in Nissan’s fingers when Prince was purchased by that firm. By the time the L engine was getting put in into 510s, it had developed sufficiently that no licensing fees required to be paid out to Stuttgart.
The only transmission offered in the W120 was a column-shifted, thoroughly synchronized four-pace handbook. The four-on-the-tree went into a handful of Detroit cars (generally ahead-control vans) the 3-on-the-tree was much a lot more well-liked below.
The W120’s rear suspension used the exact same sort of swingaxle structure that designed it so quick to flip in excess of the pre-IRS VW Beetles and, extra famously, Chevy Corvairs.
The MSRP for this car was $3,250, or about $39,921 in 2023 pounds. You could get a new 1960 Oldsmobile Tremendous Eighty-Eight four-doorway sedan for 74 fewer dollars, getting four moments the horsepower (as well as an automatic transmission) in the process. The 180b was a greater wager to previous a 50 percent-century, of study course.
A 1960 180b in attractive affliction is worth first rate cash, but restoring one like this would have been prohibitively highly-priced. That’s why its remaining parking place is next to a doomed ’54 Plymouth in Denver.
I experienced an previous movie digicam (a 1940s-vintage Ansco Shur-Shot) with me, as I generally do, when I frequented this car or truck, so I took this photograph.