I know, I need to start proofreading my posts. Sometimes seeing my own old posts makes me cringe.

 

I'll keep you on the straight and narrow path lol

I'm bad too, I don't type properly, but I have taught myself to type quickly, but I always have a fair number of errors I have to go back and fix.

 

2001 is the year

 

I visited the W222 final assembly in 2019. Much of the assembly and installation is still done by hand, or robot assist (humans guide the carriers that install the dash, install the seats etc). From what I've seen the LS line features more complete, hands off automation. There are a ton of videos you can watch on Youtube but the coolest one features the car driving itself off the end of the line to the holding area. There is some kind of device suction mounted on the window but it's activating the steering, throttle and brake controls baked into the car.

We walked by the W223 factory that was still being built. The tour guide said making the factory takes about 18 months and the cost is equivalent to the development cost of the car itself.

If you ignore the trend towards turbocharging V12s then the 600h is right on the money. BMW's 2003 V12 made about 400 HP, and the Audi W12 was originally around 450. Mercedes had 400 from the M120 in the late 90s and 360 in 2001-2003 hp before adding the snails in 2003. C&D's initial review of the 2001 S600 quotes performance numbers that are right in line with the 600h.

I've driven both a 1996 S600 and a 2009 with the TT V12. The NA engine is glorious; sounds amazing and feels like my LS430 with a bit more spunk. The low end is softer however but the power builds quickly like a jet engine. The TT V12 is a rocket; It's like my 600h on crack. Acceleration of the TT car even at highway speeds is scary fast but very smooth and composed. You can activate traction control in any of the first 4 gears with a heavy right foot. I would probably be in jail for speeding it gains speed so easily and the power is instant and totally addictive. But returning to the dealer we has to gas up and that's where the rubber meets the road; our little freeway test drive netted 13 mpg where even caning my 600h to Palm Springs I can get in the high 20s.

I saw the video in the original post. Had they compared the UL version they would have had feature parity; and there are certain known issues with the W140 (AC evaporator, duo valve, the biodegrading engine harness, windwo regulators) that are annoying if not expensive issues that the LS430 lacks. The LS430 is clearly a reaction to the W140 but so was the W220 that came after it. Criticized as too heavy, too expensive and too big they shrunk the car and stuffed it with unproven technology which is why they are so cheap on the used market. They also had to make room at the top of the range for the upcoming Maybach 57 and 62 cars which were based on (you guessed it) a heavily modified W140 platform.

 

Someone made the comment on the Carwizard site that the reason the Merc hood needed to be so strong is that it needs to be opened a lot more often.

 

Now that's a good one....

 

Great post, if only Car Wizard was as insightful in his review instead of misleading viewers with his bias.

 

Opinions by their very nature are always biased.

 

same thing as how a 5 year old iPhone is treated. Obsolete. They have turned cars into phones and screens. I highly doubt cars will last 30 years from now. Broken screens and capacitive touch buttons will no longer be replaceable once spare parts run out.

They also don’t survive in a typical junk yard unlike traditional instrument panels and *****.

 

TBH it's kinda cool in a retro way. I love the interior of my SC400; the materials are good quality but it's just. so. simple. it's almost like a middle finger to Teslas of today with their screens. I AM A CAR it seems to say. My 560 interior is amazing simply because the materials are top notch; the leather on the rear seats is softer than any leather you can get today save semi-analine leather in a RR or LS.

I was at the LA Auto show when Mercedes launched the W220. In the owners lounge (back when they had one) they brought one in after the presentation in Detroit. We all remarked that the seats were sportier and the car was lower. Even then (with the W140 outside on the stand) the interior seemed cheap albeit functional and stuffed with tech. Someone remarked that it seemed that Mercedes had traditionally spent money on the materials and the craftsmanship; and now they were spending it on the tech. 20 years on this rings very true; although high end manufacturers are starting to spend on interior materials again.

Sadly I think this trend is the death knell for durable cars. Case and point:

• My 1981 diesel has no computers. It will drive and brake quite happily without any electrical power at all (when the alternator dies and kills the battery you can jump it and drive to the mechanic I've done this). Roll down the manual windows and you are good to go.
• My 1991 560 has 3 computers, engine mgmt, ABS and the bluetooth system I added. Maybe you can count the radio so 4.
• My 1998 SC400 has about 20 computers.
• My 2001 LS 430 has 30 computers; 28 OEM and 2 for bluetooth and ipod integration.
• My 2008 600h has 71 (!!!!) computers. One I added for USB/ipod.

I think the new Panamera has over 100. I've been lucky in that the electronics in the Japanese cars have been bomb proof (early LS400s had capacitor issues in their ECUs so far the late 90s ones seem immune) but will we be able to get a nav screen in 10 years? Lock the doors in the 560 and you hear the clank of metal it's completely mechanical. Closing the doors in either LS results in the whir of a motor to pull the door shut. Where am I gonna find one of those in 10 years? IDK. Of course I can spend $1000+ on the whole assembly if I can find one.

You can already see this trend from early 2000s cars. The BMW 7 series from 2002 is the best selling 7 ever but you never see them anymore; as these expensive parts fail the car gets junked. Ditto the W220 which seems thin on the ground. But I see late 90's S and E classes all the time; and even LS400s and Camrys from that time are not that hard to find.

I used to think leasing cars was stupid but at the high end it may be smart. Buy it and toss it before it falls apart.

 

Over a working career...30 years of leasing is a ton of interest. I kinda think the screens suck.....my 21 4Runner has a nice new screen...my old one doesn’t....

 

I remember when I had my 05 LS430 UL, it didn't have the recorder like the one from 2001-2003.
I was like WTH, but it's not like it was a deal breaker



can you say holy TSB and recalls Batman
And that was during the Chrysler merger

And I think they did much better with the w221 when they cut ties with Chrysler

 

What annoys me more than anything is the horrible myth going around as if the Americans had any blame in DaimlerChrysler's problems in Stuttgart and Sindelfingen.

It's simply revisionist history that favors anti-Chrysler MB supporters/fanatics and not even accurate in the least, as that wasn't even a merger. It was literally a covert hostile takeover by a bully of a giant CEO against a sheepish midget in Robert Eaton at Chrysler and wiped out Chrysler's multi-billion dollar rain day fund, which had been set right after Iacocca formally retired on January 1, 1993. Iacocca made a huge mistake with appointing his replacement.


In 1991, McKinsey & Co. went from being hired consultants, to having their own people infiltrate Daimler-Benz's own executive ranks. That was ground zero to the lessened quality issues they later had. They started outsourcing significantly, cheapened the manufacturing process.

The first generation C-Class released in the summer of 1993 (USA November 1993), was moderately affected, because it was too far along to engineer in some lesser aspects. That was in development since 1986 and got dialed in during 1989 and was solidified by January 1990, before the new edicts.

The 4-eyed W210 E-Class released in the fall of 1995, was thoroughly affected. Daimler-Benz AG instituted these policies in 1991, due to the fact the W140 family and R129 SL (1989) cost so much to develop.

W210 final design and packaging was set in 1991, so it quickly absorbed the new edicts. It had been underway since 1988, but gained traction mostly in 1991, leaked in December 1991 by a magazine and first appeared in spy shots from middle of 1992.

Parallel to that, executive management felt Mercedes-Benz was becoming a brand of dated, uppity cars adjacent to Rolls-Royce and not connecting well enough with the youthful sets outside of celebrities and heirs. BMW and Lexus were threats, as was the 1991 Legend.

As much as I love MB, they sabotaged themselves for greed in the early 90s and from misplaced insecurity (margins, BMW, Lexus, Acura), not any merger. People seem to forget, MB started having issues from the mid-late 90s new products and not magically out of nowhere after 1998-99 during DaimlerChrysler. These problems take gradual time to show up, as engineering changes are not immediate effect.

The real victim in the merger was Chrysler and MB's methods for their own cars, were done independent of influence from Auburn Hills, MI engineers. The idea that Michigan engineers had any input or involvement on an S-Class or E-Class is a dumb apologist myth.

The W221 mentioned, was developed from 1999 to 2005, the first and only S-Class fully developed under DaimlerChrysler. Plus, guess who was in charge? None other than Herr Schrempp, a very diabolical CEO at MB's worst days.The cash infusion from Detroit $$$ ironically made for very well improved Benzes in the mid-late 2000s, which all started development during DaimlerChrysler days.

The side who did suffer was the Americans in Detroit, who lost a lot of talent over the anger of the merger in 1998 and the hostile takeovers in 1999-2000, which saw Auburn Hills Chrysler execs forced out in favor of aloof German management from Stuttgart or yes-men to Schrempp.

Dr. Dieter Zetsche was one of those and ironically often fought with his CEO, on him during more than the "necessary amount" for Chrysler over in Detroit. It was a tug of war over good-willed Zetsche, with on one end the Americans wanting a say & some good representation at HQ in Germany and on one end, dirty Schrempp wanting to keep Chrysler beneath him and begging.

The W221 was the pinnacle of what MB could do under DaimlerChrysler alongside the SLR McLaren. W222 was only in development for several months to 1 year, when the companies divorced in 2007. W222 became definitive in 2009-2010, ahead of its belated launch in 2013.

W220 was thoroughly planned, developed, and tested from 1992 to 1998 under Daimler-Benz AG and had received engineering program sign-off in 1997, months before any DaimlerChrysler merger. All they did was test pilot W220 builds in the factory in early-mid 1998 and begin with Job 1 that summer. Launched in October 1998 in domestic DE and April 1999 in USA.

The mess that was W220's quality, was Daimler-Benz AG's own doing and the work of their nasty and greedy then-CEO, Jurgen Schrempp, chopping costs like it was a board game he was enjoying.

A towering, intimidating German middle-aged figure with the nastiest temperament. He ran Benz AG and DaimlerChrysler like a brutal dictatorship (or like a mob boss), until being forced to retire in 2005-06 by the outraged board and hand the reins over to the forever talented Dr. Dieter Zetsche (turned MB around significantly), who ran both DaimlerChrysler in its final full year and Daimler AG from 2006 to his retirement in 2019 at age 66.

The quality of W126 and engineered with no cost feel of W140, went away primarily because Benz AG wanted to reduce costs and shorten development time significantly, for pricing parity against BMW and Lexus to a lesser degree. W222 wasn't perfect, but damn near was and remains my favorite S-Class of the modern era. If not for the V12 only being limited to XL sized Maybach or overkill S65 AMG, I would've gladly owned a W222 over my M760i. S600 would've been just right.

 

Seems rather obvious, to me at least, that Mercedes (Daimler) wanted Chrysler for the same reason that both Chrysler and Renault earlier wanted AMC, and why AMC, earlier, wanted it from ******...the almost-always-profitable Jeep Division.

Lido only "retired" on paper. Behind the scenes, he never left the auto industry until the day he passed away. He and Kirk Kerkorian came up with plans to try and re-take Chrysler with a stock-ownership scheme.

 

I really want to touch on more later today, when time permits after I go to an appointment soon. It concerns some posts I saw much earlier, I never got to address. Such as the false claim that the W140 S-Class is a copy of the original LS400. 1986 and 1987 want that claim back LOL.


W140 December 9, 1986 Final Design Approval.

W140 1987

1987


September 1987 Spy Shots of W140

1987 Spy Shots of W140

Now where was the Lexus LS400 in 1986 and 1987?...

I don't know why people forget once again, that all cars are developed years in advance and you cannot just assume that someone copied another unless enough time is allotted to do so . Trust me I know, because I wouldn't be able to even copy a new 2021 pickup on the project I am working on for 2023. We've already locked in said vehicle for months and had a final draft well before the design freeze.

Lexus was able to copy the C140 by 2000, because they were not confident in previous LS 430 design proposals as I showed you, that deviated from the original LS400 successful design and fell flat.

And they had enough time to do so, almost 6 years. The C140 coupe was unveiled in January 1992 and had press shots leaked to magazines in the fall of 1991.

Auto-Motor-und-Sport 27 Dezember 1991

Toyota got creative in 1997 and ignored the sedan, favoring the Coupé instead.

Almost always profitable? Oh no wonder. Never made that connection, even as someone in my professional capacity. It wasn't just the image, but business side of things for Jeep.

However, it was not entirely that factor, but substantial war chest Chryslercaccumulated through post-1991 success with great designs (post K-car). It was like blood in shark infested waters and Schrempp was biggest shark.

I deliberately did not go further about Iacocca's situation post-1993, as it's a painful subject to think about and it would be too off-topic. I learned about everything in retrospect, as I was merely a kid then, but did learn about the failed takeover many years back.

My main focus here though is, no single S-Class or Mercedes-Benz failure can be blamed on Chrysler, especially if before 2003. The first true development model was the Pacifica in 2003 and maybe the 2003 Viper which became definitive in 1999, designed by the 1992 Camry designer Osamu Shikado.

MB only gave Chrysler hand-me-downs from both current (W211 E-Class to Charger) and outgoing models (R170 SLK - Crossfire). Thankfully, not previous generation cars which is another long lasting myth.

Lexus with the LS 430, succeeded in spite of its derative design and superseded the malaise of Jaguar, while MB relied on gimmicky unreliable tech and its past for sales, which had mixed results. BMW went with shock and awe, plus attempting to reinvent the wheel.