Well, I believe the only Mercedes availible with a Borg-Warner automatic in '58 was the big 300 series limousine. And I don't think that model was 99% of their sales for the few years until 1961, when they began offering their own 4-speed automatics on their higher-volume models.

As for desireabiliy, I have owned or driven numerous older Mercedes with both sticks and automatics, and I still prefer the manual on their smaller fours and sixes. It's rare that I've sampled one of these 30 to 45 year-old autoboxes that really worked well. I very much prefer the 4-speed stick in my Fintail, and the 5-speed in my 300TD, to the automatic versions I've driven.

It's true that an automatic can be preferable in heavy rush-hour traffic, but most of us aren't subjecting our vintage vehicles to this on a regular basis anymore.
And while a manual-box isn't going to transform one of these cars into a Jaguar XKE, I just find them more responsive and satisfying with a stickshift - even the 69 280S I test drove many years ago, with a very-rare (on this model) manual column-shift.

Or, as a friend once told me, "These cars feel 500 pounds lighter with a stickshift!"

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

having owned a 69 108 (s) with column mounted stick, i must say that an automatic pales in comparison. to me, driving auto is mindless. downshifting is a vital part of driving. however, it is a personal thing, and i have nothing but respect for mercmad's knowledge, experience and (most importantly) fine stable of classics. (if only i could move the whole garage to this country)

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"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

here's what I've done to my car so far...... M115 engine, custom exhaust(there's no W115 rear muffler in stock here but same sound at idle but deeper)

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My reference lists 2.0, 2.2 and 2.3 liter M115 engines.
What year/model M115 engine did you use?
Until I stopped driving the car many years ago, I sometimes thought about swapping one of these newer fours into my '61 Ponton 180b (or a 190SL motor!)

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

Having worked on the infamous Moss box in jags (and a younger brother had one in an Allard behind a nail head buick ) you wouldn't want to transform anything into an XKE.... The Moss box is a Really horrible slow old fashioned design which parts are impossible to source now.
I have the complete column shift mechanism for a W108 ,from a swap where the owner wanted an auto... I've seen a few, mostly 250S's .One even had non power steer.

I guess it's just a fashion thing really, we bought new mercs with manual trans because that was all the franchise owner had imported but on the winding roads of New Zealand it was like rowing a boat .. and a lot of the predjudice towards auto's in mercs is a really ancient holdover from the 1960's in the US where autotrans were based on a batch of truly old designs which sucked the power from the engine.
Combined with the huge weight of the Buicks,Olds caddys etc the engines had to correspondingly big to provide enough power to move the car,most of which struggle around 100 Mph.
Hot rodders in the 1950's found that by installing (as an example) the trans from a 1938 Packard into their 1950 Olds Rocket ,the car would be transformed. That thinking held sway for decades even when it was pointed out that even Jim Hall ran a two speed powerglide in his winning Chapparel race cars and top running drag racers use a decendent of the power glide and torque flight.
To many drivers, the difference it makes to have manual trans isn't worth the effort involved in driving the car. I drive both so it makes no difference to me but I prefer to just point and squirt.

There my be geographic difference at play here. In the United States, most new car buyers want automatics, so that's what most new cars come equipped with. Manual transmissions are comparatively rare. Add in the fact that car enthusiasts prefer manual transmissions in much greater proportion than the average new car buyer, and you get a situation in which American car enthusiasts tend to think a guy is off his rocker if he wants to convert from a manual to an auto.

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Whoever said there's nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes never had a cheap Jaguar.

83 300D Turbo with manual conversion, early W126 vented front rotors and H4 headlights 400,xxx miles
08 Suzuki GSX-R600 M4 Slip-on 22,xxx miles
88 Jaguar XJS V12 94,xxx miles. Work in progress.

I would doubt very much that "car Enthuisasts" would out number the ordinary car buyers. Most folks I know are car people, but I Know some drug addicts who think that because they smoke dope ,and all their 'friends' smoke dope that everyone smokes dope....but they don't do they...
I am a 'born to drive' car enthusiast and have been as long as I can remember back , Even dabbled in Motor sport where first hand information on trans and diff ratios were important ,but I don't give a hoot for changing gears,even Henry Ford with his Model T tried to get away from them.... I

My analogy was to the sportscar, not necessarily the Jaguar gearbox
Perhaps I should have used my '67 Sunbeam Alpine as an example of a tight, precise and enjoyable manual tranny.
I learned to drive a stick in a Mercedes Ponton 180b.
In my experience, since the early '70s Mercedes automatics have greatly improved.
For a few years in the early '80s, my Mom actually had a 70 250 sedan, with a beautifully shifting automatic until my Dad totalled the car (With, thanlfully, only minimal injury).
But around that same time, I owned a '66 Fintail 230 with a jerky-shifting automatic. And, unless the accelerator was floored to the kickdown switch, that tranny had an annoying second-gear start. Many years later, a friend acquired a '65 220S with the same irritating automatic. (The fact that my 230's automatic died the same week I was trying to sell the car also left a bad taste so far as old Merc autoboxes were concerned)
By comparison, my '60 Fintail, with it's manual columnshift, was a pleasure to drive. Of course, as I mentioned, I wasn;t driving that car in daily rush hour traffic either.

Most of the time, my '82 240D automatic actually works pretty well, considering its pushing a 3400 pound vehicle with 67 horsepower. It's the perfect lazy-man's car for local errands, but it's slow, and with the 3.69 rear and no overdrive gear, it's very noisy on the highway. Also fuel mileage is nothing special - only mid 20s at best.
On the other hand, my Euro non-turbo 300TD, with it's 5-speed-overdrive box, is a totally different animal. It drives like a normal car, gets 30 mpg highway in relative quiet, and feels quite peppy, not only compared to my 240D, but also the 1980 US-market automatic TD I test drove recently.

Now, like most modern vehicles, my '98 Nissan Altima's automatic performs vey well. It's the car I drive if I'm in a hurry or likely to be stuck in heavy traffic. But there are still occasions where I prefer if it was in a different gear than the one it's automatic has selected. So you can see why I tend to prefer the stick versions. And the 'forbidden fruit' aspect of my Euro TD also ads to the attraction.

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

yep the sunbeam ( a hillman husky van in a party dress ) does have a good engine and trans which was used up until recently in the Iranian Peykan. I have even raced a hillman with the 1725 engine,very popular car to race in the late 60's and early 70's because of the tuning potential and that trans which was fool proof when shifting fast.. I once bolted one of those boxes behind a Ford 272 V8.It worked OK until someone suggested that I should have used the Super snipe box which looks the same but is twice size and strength then it broke at the traffic lights that same day
A 240 D is Automotive valium, even worse is a 200D ,there I can understand a 4 speed ...

I don't agree.

Looking at mobile.de, Europe's largest used car site, you can see that of ALL Mercedes-Benz offered for sale currently:
76686 are autos and 46284 are manuals.
narrow the search down to all pre-1980 and you get:
1010 autos, 860 manuals
looking at only pre-1970's shows:
304 autos, 553 manuals

Swedens Blocket, a craigslist type of classified listing site shows similar results.
All MB's: 4347 autos, 2623 manuals
Pre-1980: 57 autos, 73 manuals

Of course these are not sales figures from back when the cars were sold, but it indicates strongly that Mercedes-Benz sold a lot of manuals through the years (and the further you go back in time in these classifieds the more manuals you see apparently) and I don't think it's neither accurate nor fair to say that there's is "a consensus view" that the manuals suck.

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Tomas, Sweden
1966 Mercedes Benz 230S with OM617.912, automatic. Disk brakes from W108
1983 Mercedes Benz 300TD grey, OM617.912 and 5-speed manual
1983 Mercedes Benz 300TD blue 7-seater, OM617.912 and 5-speed manual

My first British car was a '62 Hillman Super-Minx. The car was a rustbucket, but it was also a convertible for only $50, with of course a 4-speed stick.

Here in the US, the statement "since 1958" is closer to the truth, only I would change it to "since 1970", as that was the year Mercedes no longer offered the manual shift in the US market, except as an option on the 4-cylinder diesels and the outgoing 280SL. This limitation continued until the mid '80s, when a manual box was again optional on the 190E/D and, for a couple years, on the W124 300E.

Back to topic, Unless it's going to be a daily-driver, if at all possible I would keep the stickshift in that 280S, as it's a better match with that small six in terms of performance and economy, and a manual shift W108 in the US IS pretty rare.

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

The M115 was from 1968-1974 i don't know, what year did M115 have Stromberg CD175 carburetor? The cylinder head is printed 121 xxx 01 38. I bet my engine was early version.

The M115 was used until the early 80's. The engine was in the W123 bodied 230's. The Stromberg was used throughout the M115's production range as the main carburetor. The dual carbed Solex's and Zenith equipped M115's were an option not often seen in the United States.

Yes, there's dual carbed M115s, they looked very similar to M121 200(my car originally powered). Here in the Philppines, the parts of these motor are plenty as hotcakes really, they even have brand new cylinder head, conrods and camshaft here. My 121 died from many complications(cracked heads,block,bent rods and cranks,busted rings) the swap was really a practical way than rebuilding the original one. I used the same manual gearbox(column shift of course), you might ask how, well, I did some cutting around the fly wheel and a little in the bell housing, but I didn't try to lighten the flywheel though. Changed the old manual lube with Bardahl ATF (MERCON/DEXRON III) and installing installing the engine in my car, it ran beautifully.

you spend far too much time on the internet looking for "facts" to add to arguments. I am using what is gathered in my head from owning these cars since (myself) since 1974 and our family's experience with the make since 1928.
Why don't you try asking Daimler AG for the 'true facts' ?