Even the W124 driver does a face plant when the car is not equipped with an airbag. Note this car did have seatbelt pretensioners:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4FPaB-Fcw0

-J

I had a 71 dart, it had high def manual drums....yep I could make that darn think stop on a dime if I stood on the brake peddle....but hit a puddle and I would lose my brakes. Plus my drums always seemed to need adjusting once a month.

That car and I was in some pretty serious accidents but you know I never got hurt besides some back pain. A buick suv pulled away from the curb in front of me one time, I hit that mother and ice cream scooped the front end out....all she did to me was slice the passenger side of the car...I hit a turn sign taking a corner at 55....it dented my valance, a honda rear ended me...dented the valance....I hit a parked buick showing off for coworkers....lost a fender...

I miss the speed....but I don't miss those manual brakes, leaf spring suspension and having to slow to 5mph to take a corner...

I love these mercedes, as I now have the safety of that car but the feel of a new car while still having a classic....granted they are slow...but I don't miss the 12mpg of the dart :D

Primitive as they were by today's standards, one of the biggest problems with the handling on vehicles like the original Dodge Dart, was the miserable, undersized bias-ply tires fitted to most American cars in those days.
My '61 Ponton 180 had pretty mediocre non-power drums. Helped somewhat when I replaced the warped cast-iron fronts with a pair of alfin (finned aluminum) drums from an early Fintail. When the W111 coupe came out with front discs in 1961, one auto writer referred to the drum brakes fitted to earlier models as "Mercedes' Achilles heel".
Also, after many years of suffering with bias-plys on my Ponton (partly because I couldn't afford radials, but also because my Chilton manual stated that radials were unsafe on a swing-axle suspension) I finally fitted a set of halfway decent 13" used radials off a junker Pinto where I used to work. What an improvement those tires made!

As for that Ponton crash-test, the steering wheel and windshield popping out, DID actually prevent the driver from hitting the windshield.
Today, I might seriously consider retrofitting a collapsible steering column and later Fintail front discs, along with lap & shoulder belts. And of course, radial tires!

Happy Motoring, Mark

Holy rust bucket batman!
Not quite. This is an offset crash test where only 50% of the w124 hit the wall at 55kph (34MPH). The original W123 video was 100% of the front of the car hitting at a lower speed. The W124 dissapated more energy in 1/2 of the area of the W123 test. The original full video was done in Germany by Auto Motor und Sport in 1992 to highlight that large cars did very poorly in the (then) new offset crash test. The W126, W201 and W124 were the first cars designed with the offset crash test in mind. Heres the full version of that video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaiMUM0XVZk

Today the standard front offset crash test both in the US and Europe 40% at 40mph (64kph) and last year the IIHS started testing cars at 20% offset.

The auto safety overrides may be mandated soon.

The Feds Want To End Crashes By Making Cars Talk To Each Other

Ah, yes! More electronics. More computers. And all of it will be 100% reliable and infallible for the life of the vehicle, right? By the way, how will these high-tech wonders communicate with my 240D? Oh, I guess all the old low tech vehicles will eventually be outlawed, or at least taxed off the highways. People wanting to operate cars older than 5 or 10 years will have to pay a stiff penalty!

Happy Motoring, Mark

Your are probably 100% correct. I have been thinking along these lines for a long time.

They have been knocking around the idea of taxing on the number of miles driven instead of paying at the pump per gallon of road tax.

My guess, the more fuel efficient, the less you pay and the less efficient, the more you pay.
I was reading an article about this a few days ago, and each state has their own idea how to do the taxing. there is GPS one they like, but then they know where you are at all times. think...Big brother is watching you at all times. this one has people up in arms. Just more Govt control.


Charlie