Height of bad taste or plain bonkers?

People who diss Beemers are just wrestling with their inner petrolhead, and are to be pitied, for the most part.

Do I smell a Horse?

 

And back to the original picture.

Bub, have you ever considered "doing up" your mana in such a way?

 

LOL. It'll certainly double nay treble the WAF

 

Sorry to get back to cars. I really don't understand your dislike for the Mercedes.

Or again, perhaps I see it in a different light than most people. I tend to think of it as a follower of the gullwing and the Stromlinienwagen.

For the Stromlinien, see this

Now, please don't tell me it's also a pimp's car, or a malformed roadster!!

 

A better view of the Stromlinienwagen.


Also:






and:

 

No one cares to comment on the Stromlinienwagen?!!!!???

The best looking car ever (not IMO: that is an absolute truth, the Kantian Ding an sich!!!).

Now don't you dare call it a pimp's car!!

 

it's got no headlights.

cheers


julian

 

Thats because Michael has an inferiority complex because he drives a bimmer

I really like the styling of the new Mercedes models especially the CL. The SLR as others have mentioned is very ugly. I also dont like the slab sided older models.

 

Looks like a pimp's car to me.

I'll leave now, don't know anything about cars other than that the Sunbeam Alpine is the only one I'd ever consider owning.

-- Ian

 

stremmuline a whats it?!?!?!

It looks like someone tried to make a Catamaran out of two peanuts.

 

It is a beautiful car - it's the 300SLR, the car in which Stirling Moss famously won the Mille Miglia...can't remember the year.

Now to re-use the SLR moniker on that pimp-mobile they're bringing out is sacrilege! It would be like some long lost descendant of DaVinci photographing a hooker with her tits out and calling it "Mona Lisa"

The racing Mercs of the 1950s were all extremely nice looking cars. However, their recent styling leaves a lot to be desired (with the exception of the SL).

Michael.

 

I can't speak for Michael, but I also drive a BMW but like some Mercedes and Audis as well because they are well built drivers cars.

I don't know if any of you guys have seen sneak prerview pictures of the new Mercedes S Class in Autocar, but the best thing I could say about it was that it made the BMW 7 series look attractive

BMW and Mercedes have to move the art of car design forward and can't just keep on milking the existing shapes like some manufacturers (dare I mention Jaguar?). Both BMW and Mercedes have been in the past accused of being ultra conservative and now that they are trying to be more adventurous, I think they deserve some praise that, but I do wish they'd hire better designers

Having said that I do like some of Chris Bangle's designs such as Z4 and the 7 Series, yes I am on medication and will wash my mouth out (or should that be my typing finger ) with soap. I think they look good in black but very plain in other colours. I reckin I could improve the 7 Series' looks with very little work.

 

Don't think so, Michael. The Stromlinienwagen was, IIRC, the full-bodied, single seated Grand Prix car (hence the absence of headlamps).The 300SLR was a two-seater sports car designed to win the then World Sports Car championship (drivers were so much more versatile then!). the 300SLR was indeed the car used by Stirling Moss and Denis Jenkinson to win the 1955 Mille Miglia, Jenks unrolling his route guide on what looked like a toilet roll and signalling to Moss by hand what was coming up. But this isn't it! This is:

http://www.idcow.com/mst2069.html

P.S. My nomination for the world's best-looking competition car is the Jaguar D-Type of the same era.

 

You're right of course. I was misled by the name of the large image that RdS posted (300SLRfront.jpg). The Sromlinienwagen was a streamlined (hence the name) W196 Grand Prix car used for ultra fast circuits like the Avus ring.

The 300SLR was as you decribe but apart from the details (like headlights) they do look remarkably similar.

My comments on the 300SLR in relation to the modern one stand

Michael.

 

...and I agree that it's a terrible-looking thing!

 

Oh, bugger! I just lost a carefully worked out reply in which I mathematically demonstrated that you are all wrong. But I did include to many smilies (the nasty ones) and I lost it.

The Da Vinci point is amusing . But it really is a loss of talent - even down and out the girl could be beautiful.

And yes, the Stromlinienwagen was really a F1 machine, but Fangio rejected it and insisted on an open wheeled and shorter chasis version. therefore it was only used in the likes of Avus and Monza. But it still is a fantastically beautiful car.

Someone pointed out it has no lights. That is because it has such an inner beauty that it shines by itself. But I wouldn't expect barbarians like the lot of you BMW worshipers to appreciate that



Every Mercedes sportscar is a Silberpfeil. This is the TRUTH .

:inferno:

 

on my jaunt to and from brighton (see other thread) i had the oportunity to study the form of bmw's 5 series a couple of times and marvel how when some get behind the wheel of a german car (usually a bimmer, audi or vw) they instantly seem to turn into a git.
anyway the 5 series, still a bit of a swampdonkey but it's been nagging me that it reminds me of another car on the road... turns out it's the lexus is200, but stretched and boy racerized, the wheelarches are flared in a similar way, there is the bizzarre mix of curves and edges (although they seem to sit better on the lexus for some reason) and the boot lines (although softer and without that 'boot lid from a completely different car look' on the is200) are very similar too. now with this and bmw's copying of the rear lights on the compact perhaps bmw aren;t as aventgarde as they like to think they are.
cheers


julian

 

Now that's really saying something.
Both motors are ugly as sin in any case.
I agree with Tones, the D-Type knocks those poncy MBs into a cocked hat. Silver arrow or no.

 

I usually like to read both yours and Tones' posts. But, from now on, I'll look upon them with deep suspition.

How can otherwise sane people say monstrosities like that?

The D-Type was kind of nice. Well, Jags usually are pretty. But the Mercs are beautiful.

The likes of you are to blame for the current trand of ugly, amphibian - nay, urodele - like looking cars. The D-Type looks like a gigantic salamander, or even a triton - tail and all.

All modern day cars have that gelly-like appearance. It's your doing!

On your conscience it will be!

GRRRR.

 

Aha, but RdS, the "D" and the 300SLR were out-and-out racing cars, and racing car styling has always had little to do with road car styling (for example, racing car folk don't care a fig what they look like). And you have to remember that the "jelly mould" school of styling was preceded by the "origami" school, all sharp edges. This means that you should like the new BMW 5-Series as it's a combination of both - the "origami mould" school?

On the subject of racing car styling, I was pleased to see that Ford has just revived one of the best of all shapes, the GT40. I've been privileged to see in the metal the greatest of all road warriors, the Gulf Oil machine that won six endurance races, including two consecutive Le Mans 24 hours. It's owned by a private collector and he still drives it on the road! The two Le Mans were also two of the most famous, the 1968 "race of the long night" (held in September in the wake of the student riots) and the greatest Le Mans of all, 1969, where Jacky Ickx in the old warrior fought wheel to wheel with a Porsche 908 for the last 4 hours of the race, eventually to triumph by about 100 metres. One of the British motor magazines put it very nicely before the race concerning the GT40s - "don't expect to see them in the top ten before midnight, but they should finish strongly"(!!).