dbtk

No, not from a recent issue but a road test copmparison from July 1965 in which the 600 came out on top of six luxury cars, including (in order of rank behind the 600) the Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, Lincoln Continental, Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud, Chrysler Imperial LeBaron and Jaguar 4.2/Mark X.
Here are some excerpts:

"The Mercedes-Benz 600 proved to our complete satisfaction, that it is the best car in the world. A top executive at Cadillac paid it a light-hearted compliment when he said, 'It's probably the ultimate Cadillac,' and in many ways, he was dead right."

"From the outside it makes no bones about what it is. It is a rectangular box, its flat sides and square corners compromised only where it was necessary to incorporate wheels and engine and luggage space. The rather ponderous use of chrome only seems to underline this fact--not Freudian, not the result of misapplied motivational research, just an engineer's notion of where some bright metal highlights were needed, topped, as always, by the Silver Star. The effect of all this pugnacious-looking self-confidence is a bit awe-inspiring--like watching Babe Ruth point to the spot where he was going to poke his next home run and knowing, just sure as hell, that he could do it.

This Mercedes will do it too, just sure as hell."

Imhotep Evil

Thanks.
Do you have a link ?!

dbtk

No, sorry. I bought an old edition from eBay. I will try to scan it. Another interesting note is that its chassis has a flex rating of 15,000 lbs-ft per degree. Compare this with the torsional stiffness of the Silver Cloud which is rated at 2,700 pounds-feet per degree and the Lincoln with suicide doors of 10,000 (and that was considered an exceptional chassis).

donau

This is really interesting information, thanks! Incredible cars. Do you have torsional stiffness numbers for the modern German cars as well?

SDNR

Thanks for the info.

I never get tired of this car .....it is, as you already know, one of my absolute favourite cars of all time.

dbtk

Roberto, I gathered that you like the W100s. I promise that you can drive my 600 when I get it back from Karl...provided you have driver's license and you are in the area.

Donau, for comparison the Porsche 996 Targa has a a lbs-ft per degree torsional rigidity of 13,645 and the 996 Carrrera coupe is rated at 22,643 (the convertible is 6,711). So the 600 is at least as rigid as the current Porsche Targa.

SDNR

Very kind of you dbtk ......but since I don't live in the US, that might be difficult

I have promised myself that one day I will buy myself a 600 too ...just right now it would not be 100% practical for me ...but I will one day

donau

Thanks dbtk Very interesting info. I need to do a google on torsional rigidity and find out more about that. Do you have sources for the torsional rigidity on other MB models? BTW, MB is built into my genes as well.
Pretty incredible about the 600.

dbtk

Sorry no rigidity numbers for other MB...yet. I will try to dig some up from old press releases.