Investigation: “Mixed grille for starters”

Let’s read the story first.

Mixed grille for starters

“Around this time, the first pictures landed on the desk of Bruno Sacco, head of the styling design department, who was very pleased with the results. “But why are you all photographing cars with the wrong radiator grille?” Uwe Brodbeck’s people from the press department thought they were not hearing right. The radiator grille had been the problem child of the pre-series production people: the prototypes all have camouflaged radiator sections, and nobody cares about the right grille. The first “photo cars” arrived on the scene at a time when hand-made parts were still generally being fitted. And to give the grilles of the new cars their characteristic lattice, the men in the bodywork department had resorted to a trick.“

“The grille itself, including the basic bars and the chrome surround, was identical to the subsequent series-production original. Only the pattern of the lattice behind the grille was not quite right, as this came from the old S-class and had merely been cut to the right size. Chief designer Sacco had spotted this minor discrepancy immediately. “From one horizontal chrome bar to the next, there must always be three lattice divisions. This pattern is the result of meticulous artistic workmanship. It has to do with harmony of balance and the golden mean. And the way the photos are at the moment, it looks terrible.”

“So dozens of press department employees crawled all over the light tables with thick magnifying glasses, studied thousands of slides, counted lattice slats and talked about the principles of harmony. The result: Sacco was right. The trouble was, by this time it was early November and the low September sun needed for the really good photos was not to be found anywhere in the world. Moreover, photographic sessions of this kind require long-term planning – even just transporting the cars with the necessary secrecy is a considerable problem.“

“The photographer, who was still in North Africa working for the press department, received word to drop what he was doing. The Sindelfingen body workshop went on night shift to produce an original grille with the right latticework, and the next plane to Morocco left with this grille in its hold. The air-freighted part reached the photographer, who was working in a remote, rural area, after a sort of relay race in which the Mercedes agency in Marrakesh played a prominent part. And so it was that a few sunny pictures with the right radiator grille came about.”

“The best of the other photos were carefully retouched and the motifs which did not show the grille exactly from in front stayed as they were. With a magnifying glass, it is still possible to identify the odd photo from the “pre-Sacco era,” but these are only the ones showing the wrong grille at a favourable angle.”

What a charming story, it provides multiple key pieces of information, each of which we don’t know, and I’m inclined to find some evidence that these pieces of information are correct. It would be exciting to be able to piece it all together.

The mixed grille

The chapter mentions that the grilles have the wrong number of lattices which came from the old S-class. I would have thought that the press photos with such wrong grille would not have been published, as the chapter said, they were “retouched”. But after poring over all available press photos, I think I’ve found it.

The entire grille of 140 is divided into 8 black “honeycombs” by chrome bars, its differences from later versions can be described in three ways.

1)This early grille has denser lattices (more horizontal and vertical lines) than the later version, e.g. the “honeycombs” in first row have 15 lattices per side, the later version has only 10.
2) The early grille has only 2 rows in the top 2 “honeycombs”, and 3 rows in other honeycombs, and the topmost layer of later versions is modified to 3 rows.
3) Due to the denser lattices, the shape of lattice on early version is square, the later one is rectangle.
It should be noted that the top is not missing a full row, you could say that the top honeycomb is “two and a half rows”. And that half row is not due to the viewing angle, compared to the later grille, there is indeed at least half a row missing.

There are 4 vehicles in press photos has such grille, they are:

S-HY 8883 (A000010), S-PR 6663 (A000013), S-KT 5614 (A000027), S-JW 9377 (A000046). The picture used as an example is from A000010, the body should have been produced at the end of May 1990, but the car was not completed until September 1990. As can be read from the number plate missing the MOT sticker, the car was not actually registered. S-HP 8883 was shot in Mercedes-Benz’s own studio. Most of these photos have not been released in physical form, and many of them have only been available through the Mercedes-Benz archives in recent years.

Of course the grille is not like the chapter says it’s from the W 126, although the W 126 also has very dense lattices, they don’t share any part of the it. Some text in this section appears to use exaggeration.

The North Africa photographing

The story of the technician taking the air-freighted grill to Morocco is really a dreamlike story, which is like a re-enactment of the Casablanca spy war.

If the photographing had happened in North Africa, there would have been press photos left. According to the chapter, this will be the first press photo with the correct grille. Well, since it’s in North Africa, it must be for location, but none of the press photos have anything like Africa. I expanded my search, flipped through those marketing brochures, and suddenly found deserts.

These photos come from the earliest and most famous brochure printed in January 1991, with two cars appearing in the desert, one silver and one black. There’s also a short film of them. They appear at different trim levels in different versions. Except for this group of photos, there are no more photos related to North Africa or the desert. I’m assuming this is the North African location mentioned in the chapter. Note that the image of the black car actually has a “PhotoShop” background, but the original background is also the desert. These brochure photos were taken by a professional agency under the supervision of the marketing department and should not be confused with regular press photos.

Look closely, even though the top 2 honeycombs have been corrected to be 3 layers, there are still 15 cells on each side, not the correct 10. In addition, the gap in the position of the hood handle is also filled by lattice. And this area is a bit blurred compared to other areas.

Yes, this is actually image processing technology, not a real grille replacement. And overall, the grilles were only corrected relatively correctly, and were not applied in all photos. Why is this fact different from the description in the chapter?

The retouched photos

The chapter vaguely mentions that those existing photos have been specially processed, and I assume this technique is applied to the S-KT 4186 shown above. So which vehicles have been treated?

I searched the archives with a magnifying glass a long time, there are actually plenty. The retouched photos have every elements from the S-KT 4186 grille, which includes:
1) The number of rows on top honeycombs corrected from 2 to 3.
2) The density of lattice is still 15 on the top row rather than 10.
3) The hood latch position is also filled by complete lattice.

The collaboration photos related to 140 are all done by René Staud’s Staud Studios, who have a long history of cooperation. Many years later, René Staud also talked about the past of the 140 grille in an interview:

“At that time, René Staud was in Provence for the photo shoot of the new S-Class (W140 series) from Mercedes-Benz. As is usual in the automotive industry, the photos were taken with pre-series models. When the last shot was in the Sinar box, four weeks of hard work lay behind a large team of photographers, assistants, lighting technicians, mechanics, make-up artists and models. The slides were quickly developed and placed on the light box for the client. But even the first look at the slides caused horror: the production model had meanwhile received another decorative strip on the radiator grille. The pictures were therefore a case for recycling.”

“What to do? If it had been a holiday, three more weeks of Provence would have had its appeal, but this was about business, specifically about several hundred thousand marks. Here came the first major test for the Kodak Premier image processing system, which was just two months old. The new radiator grilles were taken to the studio and photographed in exactly the same viewing angle and under the same lighting conditions as in the original Provençal photographs. Then mounted pixel-perfectly in the right place with the Premier system. The manipulated result was finally exposed again on slide film. Two weeks after the first presentation Staud presented the new pictures to his clients. Despite a thorough examination, no traces of manipulation could be seen, the slides could pass as the original.”

Obviously, the top electronic film-editing system was applied to 140, which created a history in the automotive industry.

Behind the texts

With all my questions, I approached Michl Koch, a former employee of Mercedes-Benz Public Relations, who wrote the booklet by himself on a typewriter at his desk.

“The snapper was NOT in Morocco at that time, but somewhere else in the world. The team did NOT have to jump into night shift, but this sounded better, and the grill was NOT delivered by special plane itself but came with the luaggage of the next engineer to join the group. But clearly, this tells the story and sounds interesting.”

This answers a lot of questions, even if some details are glossed over, but the grille’s story itself exists. Michl helped me pinpoint the location where the brochure and film were made, in Southern Spain, somewhere near Sierra Nevada north of Seville.

Anyway, the correct grill was not brought to North Africa or Southern Spain, nor even to Provence for use by René Staud. The real transformation came on the S-KT 4720 (A000049), which was photographed in Provence by René Staud with an earlier grille and again in December 1990 photographed by Mercedes-Benz Presse photographer Wolfgang Wilhelm. The timing mentioned in this chapter is basically correct, the filming took place from September 1990, and the correct grill has only been available since then.

Before the 140 was finally approved by the board in June 1990, it still had 2 different grilles, the 6-8 cylinder models had more traditional styling, and the V12 was what we see today.

Even so, the booklet is still great, and it gives an important clue. Without this prompt, it might take a long time for people to notice the change. The grille is just two pages out of this brochure, and there’s a lot more interesting stuff waiting to be verified.

“Prof. Jürgen Hubbert loved the booklet – and asked many journalists during the launch program to take a closer look”, says Michl Koch, the “Schreibkraft” of Mercedes-Benz Public Relations.

“But around several bar desk meetings with journalists after the launch we could find out, that they would develop a very different view on Mercedes‘ credibility: they themselves described it as putting the „company in a warm light“. Thus delivering more sympathy for the guys who do not only deliver perfection, but admit that many things may go wrong before you can really put them right.”

Regrettably, as far as I know, no part of this booklet has been reproduced anywhere by automotive journalists. Even the booklet itself only a small number has survived. I personally think they are more interesting than cold specs numbers. Although 140 is considered cold by many people, there are much more warm stories behind this car than its predecessor. With the golden ’80s gone, such humane promotional material won’t be covered by cuts.

^{All investigations are based on limited information, please email me if you have doubts about the veracity of this article. If you want to quote the content of this article, please contact me in advance, please do not use my text for any commercial purposes.}