1970 Mercedes-Benz C111-II - Jay Leno's Garage

welcome to the episode of Jay Leno's Garage you know there are some cars that are so special so unusual you think well there's no chance we'll ever get that car here at the garage well fortunately live in Hollywood where dreams come true and this is a dream come true for me this is I think one of the greatest Mercedes Benzes of all time this is the 1970 C 111 c2 I believe as a catchy name but this I think would have been the rightful successor to the classic goal wing from the 1950s this car comes to us from the Mercedes classic Center right here in Southern California and you know if you've got an over sadie's Benz they've got every single factory part available if they don't have it they can get it and that's why it's a kind of fun place to go down to visit every now and then because they always have something unusual something's always being restored or coming through the factory but let's learn more about this star Constantine come on in Constantine you're the the marketing guy down there at the classic Center yes sir okay nice to meet you thank you you know this is a car when I was a kid it just knocked my socks off because I had always dreamed about the gullwing I know someone is never been like that again then when I was in my late teens suddenly this started appearing tell us about it yeah I mean this car was a pure sensation when it came out first at the Frankfurt Auto Show in September of 69 this is actually the second generation that was later introduced in Geneva in 1970 slight cosmetic changes that were made in between the two and also they moved in between the first and second generation from the three-rotor Wankel to the four-rotor of uncle engine which was the main focus point for this hot bad or testbed innovation because back in the late 60s early 70s the Wankel which was the only new engine of the 20th century really everybody had gotten Wankel feet was invented by Felix Wankel of course and General Motors did something where that mercedes-benz hopped on board the Japanese that they really took it to heart with Mazda the rx-7 and the cars the Cosmo that was going to be the engine of the future but unfortunately the Wankel did not have reliability of a normal internal combustion engine with seal wear and fuel consumption was not great I think maybe the fuel crisis in the 70s kind of knocked them out of the park but it this truly was a dream car and because the Wankel was not as reliable but should be that's always been a mercedes-benz trait you've got to have their liabilities exactly the same we'll run as fast and reliable as possible so that's when they switch to a v8 but it went through what a to R owner and then a three rotor a three rotor and then a four roller three one in their whole Road okay we got a picture of the four rotor engine oh yeah and then they actually put a v8 basic 3.5 liter at that time in two of the cars just for testing purposes because aside from the engine they also wanted to test material so you had a glass fiber a fiberglass body on this car just to really test the limits of that material and in terms of rigidity that extensive wind tunnel testing with these cars a lot of suspension testing or something what was introduced with our our 107 generation SL at the time to really see what are the limits of those systems and on the rear axle they kind of adapted to something that would later become the multi-link rear suspension that we introduced believe in the early 80s and I remember I was at the classic Center in Germany and I went to this sort of nondescript warehouses we've got to show you something and they open the drawer and there were a bunch of these stacked one on top of the other if you had model cars that's how you would set him up yes yeah it was like oh my god I mean they had the road the Wankel ones there and the gate I mean it would how many of these did they build of the first generation the orange ones that everybody knows they build 13 cars in between the two generations the very first one was a prototype where basically they rolled the chassis out they already wanted to do their initial testing and before they were able to manufacture the first fiberglass body they slept a kind of crude look in aluminum body on it but it was 13 of the first and second generation and then two more later in the 70s the did the got the diesel engine and did the record runs a Nardo and of one of the fourth generation where they tested another v8 in the late 70s it was an interesting time because mercedes-benz every time I saw this card different engine remember they had the turbo diesel and it went something like 200 miles an hour but got some pretty crazy mileage like 20 miles per gallon or something yes I'm like that it was I know it doesn't sound like much but back in that day yeah even today a Bugatti Veyron will empty its gas tank in 12 minutes it flat out something like that so you getting what 1 2 miles per gallon so that was pretty amazing this is this fiberglass distance yes this one is fiberglass okay that's a fiberglass one one of my favorite designers of Mercedes Benz was a man named Bruno Sacco am I saying his name correctly yes Bruno Sacco was in charge of overall mercedes-benz passenger car design at the time I always like to stacked headlights one on top of the other there like the 6.3 to me that always made a mercedes-benz look like it you're imposing automobile so this is totally out of his wheelhouse isn't it this is this is completely different I would not recognize I don't see any of these signatures on this car now it really stood out not only for the automotive industry at the time but especially for mercedes-benz and more at the time conservatively oriented car manufacturer if you look at the other designs that we had at the time this would have really put us on the map in terms of super sports cars of the 70s which was the point of the whole funcle' experiment at the time as well it's hard to imagine but it really was a really conservative company I mean when the 6.3 which was the big engine the small cement that was sort of built in secret yeah you know and they a bunch of the guys put it together they kept driving past the boss's window justice yeah and he came out and so you know it's interesting because it was considered kind of a crazy idea for conservative company to put a big fast engine in a sedan and of course it became a legendary car so to come out with something like this which is totally off the wall was just amazing why did this not make production in some form well at first in a really hot phase of experimenting with the car in 69 and 70 there still had as you mentioned the the issues of really coming up with a solution of having a bottle engine and still provide the durability and reliability that you're used to with mercedes-benz later on around 70 to 73 we believe they sort of figured that problem out but of course by that time you had very stringent emissions regulations and by 73 the oil crisis and the bunker which was not the greatest engine in terms of fuel consumption was going to have dropped off the map for mercedes-benz and you can see all the classic Mercedes touches the big safety steering wheel yeah all the things that you know that mercedes-benz is known for I mean this is pretty radical to the wind is yeah that entire section was actually closed off with the first body style and then later on opened up to also increase a little bit of the visibility you know the coefficient of drag Remini put you on the spot you know and this one is pouring three to five point three to five days quite good isn't it it is pretty good especially for that time it seemed of a market that's pretty yes and what did it have for brakes obviously four-wheel via solar disk yes ventilated disc brakes all around and they actually did some testing on the track and Hockenheim and Nurburgring with wide racing tires done laps at the time to just really see how that whole system works both as a road configuration and a race car although they always reiterated and emphasized this is never going to be a race car we're not going to go back racing so the idea was to build a road car yes and was the Gullwing door always part of it from the get-go it was part of the design of that car and it definitely would have been a spiritual successor to the 300sl in terms of really having a sports car or a road car with racing genes yeah can we open the rear yes absolutely what we have here 5-speed transaxle yeah we had a ZF 5-speed transmission which was available at the time for example on a 280 SL you would have government in the late 60s and the transmission wasn't really part of what they wanted to test so they just went with what was available at the time I mean look how clean this engine compared to all the exciting stuff you have no cars now look how the exhaust comes down here I see goes through the muffler here mm-hmm and that's basically the original configuration that they did in the early 70s when they swapped the bank allowed for b8 for just the testing purposes they just added now lower than part of the restoration that was done in Germany last year fire suppression system the fires repressions you got it yeah and then you see some green wires over there that was for temperature testing just to make sure right here and everything is in the front yeah the standard production 3.5 the same that was in the sedan and what basically okay and what is this car weighed you know I think it's around to 2,700 pounds wow that's pretty light okay of course being fiberglass sure sure let's take a look at the interior the car yeah it's very make-do in a way as to see the vertical arrangement of the center console there with the radio is just you know try to work with the space you got that all seemed very sexy when I was a kid have the radio going this way well that had it exactly a few other people had it well and of course if your new mercedes-benz you know 300 SL you were familiar with this picture sort of climb over to get into the car but that just made it sort of more fun no and obviously strictly a two-seater car didn't have air conditioning uh yes okay so it's a very very very cool but there was thought of producing it was there was thought of really even making sure if we want to produce it we can so there was a lot of thought that also went into that version one to version two they lowered the window line so you had increased visibility so there was really the thought of okay we don't want to just turn test technology and materials on this car we want to see can we make this feasible as a production are probably a limited run or small series production but I mean it was such a sensation when it came out weren't there people lining up with checkbooks yes yes how much I don't care blank exactly we got blank checks from customers all over the world that saw the car especially the second generation in Geneva and just said fill in the number I need this car and we still have a few of those into archives in Germany actually so why did they not feel it what was the reason why they didn't go with that body style I think at some point it was also the testing okay well can we do we have a very very efficient drag coefficient on this car but in terms of the materials I think at the end they've decided that this car was not up to what you expect when you have a mercedes-benz and I feel like you usually expect aluminum steel bodywork so even aside from the bond coil issue at some point it was just shelved as a project was there any talk of building this out of aluminum not that we know of probably of our internal considerations to do that but not that we can follow through documentation is there a trunk space in the front or is it already just a little bit you got a spare tire in there it's very limited in this just a toothbrush really yes very much good so not much super cars are always going to be super cars can we take a more spin absolutely let's do it well you got a panoramic view of everything I know they really worked on the visibility here it's yeah that's my biggest complaint with modern cars he ain't pillars I know it's safer for the low low for the April which is so white I'm always going I'm always we're going to either side create color yeah this is one of those cars it just sticks in your mind when you were a kid you know I've ever seen it on the cover of rodent track seeing it in all the articles and it was pretty cool just going through all the various variations Diesel's rankles they could figure out where they what they wanted they really tried everything yeah even Mercedes concept cars we're full cars the radio works there gauges a lot of time to drive concept cars well the doors don't open or you know nothing works don't touch this notice that the air conditioner work it's fascinating to see people's faces when you're driving they have no idea what they're looking at what what is that you can always tell them own when they see the star and then think wait a minute what is going on here one thing I liked about Mercedes Benzes the gauges never moved water temperature goes to 180 upstage sits there yeah doesn't creep up to 230 you then you step on the gas it goes down to 160 boom it's right there our setting is them heating the oil now I'm just getting a kick out of it right right and shotgun in this car yeah riding shotgun is that a that's the American expression again I said that Germany no no no white guides with the shotgun I do not understand yeah what are you talking about I know you guys had this at Pebble Beach but you can drive it to Pebble Beach you could you really could it's like you said the most important thing here in Southern California the a/c is blowing so you know got that covered but it's it's easy you know in most cars where the windows don't open I feel really claustrophobic because the windows right here then where is this this is pretty cool I have the problem at all you don't have any arm contact with the door as still and I space for you long-legged isn't it boy I have a second secondly it feels like third year host gotta it's a nice little lean-to it yeah suspension I mean they really wanted to make it yeah sports car but something that you can take on the road I can take it from stood guard down in Italy or something I enjoy yourself it's utter reminds me a little bit of the what was that the m1 the BMW built member for a while there yeah yeah but this I think is the obviously faster that was only a six-cylinder did any of these ever get into private hands no not a single one Wow it's one of those cars where you say well if you break it you buy it it sends the wrong message yeah then I were trying to bring exactly all in broke I have to buy it I mean you can build this car today it really is a timeless design like a McLaren f1 it really is you can't even tell what year it is and it turned quite a lot of hats at the Pebble Beach and it's the only one that we have in our collection that's running and driving yeah the other ones with the old puntal engines in them some of them you could theoretically get running again but at this point it's more consideration of yeah conserving those engines right and really the idea here was yeah we'll put the v8 back in it the way it was used at some point in the early 70s but it's more about you know making the statement and get this car out on the road because it was almost everything every kid's dream see this drive by and luckily enough we got a chance to get it it's no noisier than a production s2 he'll know we're prototype car it's pretty refined msu you mean about production things little timing and I'm surprised they even consider the Goldwing door as late as the seventies all the safety stuff like I'm the good touch that came a little hammered so if you rolled it up you can smash the window and crawl out sounds hurry Italian yeah here's a hammer you but I could do it though you get out simple as that and it's current configuration about 205 force powers what they got out of the dyno okay yeah but it's not 205 I mean it doesn't feel it for power but yeah I got enough juice what you have to remember the car is 40-something years old yeah you know back in the day the most powerful car Ferrari had in the 70s and 220 horsepower no I mean the horsepower is just got so crazy that kind of last 10 15 year old my god you know now you need 600 just to be in the club yeah I mean that just gets you in the door you know you got the mclaren 903 la ferrari you know Bugatti 1918 Porsche I mean it's crazy how nuttiest they're really you can tell they spent a lot of time on the test track in Stuttgart and on the track and Hawk and I'm at Nurburgring the first public road test that it was actually with Rudolf who held and Hans knee ball was the project I wanna help us have been quite old at that point wasn't he yeah I'm not sure but I mean he's been around since what the early mid 30s for mercedes-benz racing yeah I think I'm ever he had the greatest road going Mercedes of all time the one out coupe yeah oh my god oh my god he was like the Bill Mitchell Germany he'd agree much builds as you know dream cars and drive them on the street and I can't imagine a post-war Germany when everybody was kind of broken you know hustling just to get enough to eat this magnificent car goes down the road I can't imagine being a kid at seeing what that must have been like now that's amazing you feel very safe and as it feels very modern you know farts feel very modern you know it doesn't feel like a 70s car when you realize it this car is almost exactly in the middle of from the invention of the car to this car to this car to now it's like a halfway point like a halfway point I remember what I was driving at Germany one time I pulled into this old village in the one of the every tourist trap number 1300 there's a church over there there's a church way over there and at 3 o'clock they've all chime at exactly the same time then I go to Italy and the hands are falling off the clock and they're not even working you know it just made me laugh but I just to pull into a thirteenth century village this made me laugh it's crazy but it's a hundreds of years just to cultivate it yeah very precision oriented culture but seeing America get away with a lot of stuff you can't get away with that's true I mean Germany you can't really modify your car much at all can you oh there's very strict regulations I mean here you got to do its mark basically and that's it that's how you got to do it depending how hold your car is but in Germany they do safety inspections and if there's anything really modified from manufacturer specs it can can get very tricky oh yeah yeah so people are always amazed when they come visit me here you got cars running around and you know headlights falling out is like I had no big deal you can't even really have dents in your car can you yeah 909 no no I got to get it fixed yeah but then again you can drive 150 miles an hour but then again you got it more civilized I think when you when you're on the Autobahn where you're only allowed if you're faster than somebody you got a pass into their left right you had like in California where you really have people just go wherever they've got the wrong direction in your lane you know I mean here it's like it's like crazy people yeah there was a Mercedes leather that was especially thick and had a great smell to it and you just kind of got replaced with just a more modern leather it doesn't air it doesn't breathe you don't have to give it - or anything it just lasts forever but I like you know I used to love you know massaging the hide food into the leather to say open it up don't be like a glove yeah what's part of the experience of a Guerin away that's very hard when you restore these cars now and you want the period-correct leather you really got to go out of your way to find out because anything you get now is for automotive it's almost aviation grain you know I resistant and everything and like I said you don't have to do anything it'll last forever it will retain that freshness but on the other hand if you restore it a couple years you want that patina you want this out of that to looks like Germany now yeah my Mercedes tried to fight it the cupholder for a long time oh yeah losing battle and then when he did come up with a couple but it was the most complex you press it in turns goes left right then it comes up and comes around this way and then it gray I mean it was the most engineered cup holder let's try the headlights it's kind of cool yeah down there beforehand yeah what a piece of history this is they might notice we're taking it kind of easy because I these tires a little old aren't they yeah nothing a little hard I could feel it's starting to slide a little bit so but we're up there in the Hills I mean it drives like a modern car you could film this car today they should build this car today we'll take it back to stuff more guys those neck folks to show up malleable we'll take it up on the freeway and then we'll head back to the shop I love closing this door what a thrill that is I want to thank Constantine in the mercedes-benz classic Center mercedes-benz in Germany you know it's a huge deal to get a car like this a priceless car like this on the road there's insurance and what nothing the fact that you guys go to all the trouble to bring in here we really appreciate it my pleasure and you've got it all Mercedes no matter what part you need this little thing here you need that switch they got it at the classic Center that's the cool thing about it so I can't thank you guys enough for making this dream come true it took me 40 something years but finally sitting I finally got this I said I got to drive it see you guys next week yep

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 1,434,322

Rating: 4.9242597 out of 5

Keywords: Mercedes, Benz, C111, Jay, Leno, Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Garage, car reviews, compares cars, classic cars, vintage cars, sports cars, super cars, cars, car gear, McLaren P1, Porsche 918 Spyder, Camaro Z28, jay lenos garage, nbc jay leno, watch jay lenos garage video, watch jay lenos garage full episode, jay lenos garage 1970 mercedes-benz C111-II, constantin von kageneck mercedes-benz, jay leno mercedes-benz, jay leno supercar, jay leno sports car

Id: jk4H1eV9JuY

Length: 24min 2sec (1442 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 18 2015