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Rashakor · #34 06-07-2006, 02:08 PM

Amen brother,

You can add to your list the 300SD, that sported the the OM617 diesel turbocharged engines that beat all the speed records in 1976 (granted, that was not a W116 body, it was the C111, but still...), and was the first production scale turbodiesel engine.

Another example of the greatness of the W116 and the 70's so-called decline (?).
Just to mention that turbo compressor spawned the slow rebirth of the diesel as passenger car engine option, and by derivative the great commercial success of the W123 body (if i am correct the largest production run on all MB history, and a product of the 70's).

Now lets mention something more intangible than production cars and let's talk about engineering.
Of the good engineering of MB in the 70's, was the developement of the now-popular hybrids (at that time only in prototype bus fleets), with regenerative breaking, idle stopping and all (they were all manual functions at that time, that must have been quite challenging to drive!).
also MB in 78, i believe, develop the hydrogen Hydride method, which is now the absolute only proposed method for storing hydrogen for fuel cells automotive applications, and upon which are constructed all present prototypes for hydrogen drive vehicles (also in buses in the late 70's).
And one last one... safety.
Most cages and crumbling zones on today cars were inspired by the W116 and W123. The air bag was already an option in 1978 in both models, ABS was close behind.
When you have a car company that has develop technology and put them on production cars and fleet 10-30 years ahead of the competition that period hardly qualifies as a decline. Sounds more to me like the pinnacle.
70's cars are not yet old enough to be classics, yet MB have clearly cars in that period that bridge the modern vehicles with the coach of yesteryears.That makes them superior to the obsolete (technologically speaking) chariots that came before, as well as, superior to the lower (perceived?) quality, electronics-laden, disposable, unserviceable present vehicular gadgetry.