Newsletter No.021 Tyre size calculator, Drive away to the USA, Fox car collecti...
M.B Spares & Service 14 Lyell st Fyshwick ACT 2609 Ph (02) 6239 1099
14 Lyell st Fyshwick ACT 2609 Ph (02) 6239 1099
Supporting Australia's Classic Mercedes-Benz Owners
Newsletter Number 21
Hello and welcome to another newsletter.
John Green.
Any questions? Or you want to get off the list? E-mail us here.
How big are your tyres??
Tyre size is part of the total design of your Mercedes-Benz. Have a read of this page to see why. Most tyre shops don't seem to care when it comes to fitting tyres and we see so many cars with the wrong size on them. Here is a great website for you to check the difference between what you have and what you should have. Use the table below to check what size is correct for your car, then go and have a look at what is fitted and check them on the site. Use this site for an explanation of how to read tyre sizes (its not bad for a laugh either). The tyre conversion chart will tell you the speedo error if you have the wrong tyres and can be set to read in metric or imperial measurements.
| W108 6 and 8 cyl version | 185/80R14 |
| W109 300SEL 3.5 | 185/80R14 |
| W115 all versions | 175/80R14 |
| W114 all except for 280E/CE | 175/80R14 |
| W114 280E/CE | 185/80R14 |
| W116 280S/280SE | 185/80R14 |
| W116 350SE/450SEL | 205/70R14 |
| W116 450SEL 6.9 | 215/70R14 |
| W123 240D/300D/230/250 | 175/80R14 |
| W123 280E and late versions with alloy wheels | 195/70R14 |
| W126 280S/280SE | 195/70R14 |
| W126 all 380SE/SEL/SEC and early 500SEL/SEC | 205/70R14 |
| W126 300SE/420SEL/late 500SEL/560SEL | 205/65R15 |
| W107 350SL/SLC, 450SL/SLC, 380SL/SLC | 205/70R14 |
| W107 300SL/420SL/560SL | 205/65R15 |
| W201 190E up to 1984 | 185/70R14 |
| W201 190E from 1985 | 185/65R15 |
| W124 all sedans, wagons and coupes | 195/65R15 |
| W202 all versions except C36 and C43 | 195/65R15 |
Drive away to the USA
Check this out. Back in the late 1950's the Mercedes-Benz agents in the USA used to orgainise special tours to Germany for its customers. Even going, at one stage, to giving 75 300d owners an all expenses paid round trip from New York to Stuttgart. Go the 300Adenauerclub site and check out the .jpg files. They are all scans of various articles writen to promote the "Pick your car up at the factory" program. Have a real good look at the MB 1.jpg file. Check out the endless row of 190SL's and the two Roundie cabroilets at the end.
Cars for Sale.
The 280SE 3.5 sold quickly! We are still getting people ringing up about it every few days. One car we have had for a while now is the 230E. Can't really work out why, it is a great car. My wife and I drove it to Sydney for a shopping trip just before Christmas and one of our staff has taken to away for a weekend trip. No new cars for sale this time, here are some of our cars
Have a look here for a full list of our cars for sale.
230E Sedan 1986 model.
Very well presented car with good service history. Has electric seats with memory on the drivers side. Also has cruise control, electric windows and alloy wheels. Long NSW rego. Diamond Blue with Gray MB-tex interior. Reduced to $15990.00 More details
A160 Classic sedan 1999 model.
Excellent condition. Has travelled only 25000kms. Excellent fuel consumption. Avant Garde Alloys. CD player. Quad air bags. ABS with brake assist. Still under MB warranty. Look here for more pictures of this car. $28990.00AUDMore details 450SLC Coupe 1978 model. 
Excellent V8 coupe, excellent mechanical condition White with brown velour interior, 15" Alloy wheelsPOAMore details
190E Sedan 1983 model.
Very early version of the 190E sedan, sunroof, electric windows, C180 15" alloys with new tyres, Grey with excellent condition tan MB-tex interior. Reduced to $9990.00 More details
380SEL Sedan 1983 model.
Dark blue metallic with grey leather, cruise control, electric windows, climate control, electric seats the lot. Vehicle is a bit rough around the edges but would be a great car for someone to tidy up. It is priced well below average market price. $8990.00 More details
The ultimate car collection??
Here is a copy of the article I wrote for the Mercedes-Benz Club of the ACT monthly magazine:
No doubt elsewhere in this magazine is an article about the recent Victorian Club Concours. Well, here is a run down of the following days activities. We had already arranged a tour of Lindsay Fox's (of Linfox Transport fame) collection on the Monday morning, but whilst at the Concours we also arranged a private tour of Nerio Dizane's workshop. He is the chap who owned the 1915 W5 Benz mentioned in Lynn Harrissons article.
To say that his workshop was an eye opener would be an understatement. Nerio was not able to personally conduct the tour himself due to business obligations, but left us in the capable hands of Lou his mechanic. We were treated to a wonderful display of Brabham racing cars including Jacks 1964 Indy car, several Coventry Climax powered Lotus's and Murray Carters Corvette (as features in this months Unique Cars). Nerio also has a fully restored Brabham Copper, and one of only two remaining "Little cars". Little was a brand brought out by Chrysler in the 1920's so it does have some relationship to our club?? The pride of their workshop was however the W5 Benz and its stablemate a 1921 Benz Speedster that was very close to having its restoration finished. Lou treated us to some amazing discussions on the restoration processes of the Benz's and the Brabham's.
Next stop was "Automoves" the new name for the Fox collection of cars. To give you some idea of what this collection is like here is a list of some of the cars: six 300SL Gullwings, five 300SL Roadsters, Bing Crosby's 300Sc as seen at our Concours last year, 600 Launderlet (super long stretch with cabriolet rear half to the roof) that used to belong to Bob Jane , 2 more stretch 600's, one that used to belong to Ringo Star, 280SE 3.5 cabriolet, 220SE Roundie coupe in original unrestored condition, 170S Cabriolet A, 220 Cabriolet A, 540K (rhd that used to belong to the German Ambassador to the UK) 200 Cabriolet C from the 1930's, 190E 2.5-16 Evo2, 220SE W111 coupe and 250SE coupe, 280SL W113 and 250SL and 230SL.
And then there were the other makes like: Ferrari F40 and F50, Porsche 959 and one of every other Porsche made right back to the 356, the last Carman Ghia Bettle ever made, the third last RHD bettle sedan ever made, a few famous Australian race cars (like the Godzilla (Nissan Skyline) that won Bathurst after hitting the wall in the rain), heaps of Jags including a few of those new super fast ones and a rare Concours aluminium body XK120 roadster, more Rolls Royce's than I could count.........etc…..etc……etc.
Apart from checking out the cars we also got to check out the workshop where they are all restored and maintained. Their professionalism extends to having a timber buck for the production of exact replica panels for the 300SL's. On the wall of their panel shop was a 1:1 scale drawing of a gullwing supplied to them under licence from the MB classic centre in Germany. They were only allowed to have it if they promised not to start mass producing new Gullwings!
Automoves is not open to the public on a daily basis, but tours can be arranged for club members by contacting our Motoring Events Director (Stuart Burton). Entry fee is a donation of $15.00 for the "Very Special Children Fund"
You could say that I had a rather good weekend.
So that's it for another newsletter. Hope you liked what you saw. If you have any ideas or want to contribute any articles, pictures or other material please e-mail me here. Also don't forget that you can check out the old newsletters here
Thanks, John Green.
