The Ninety Mercedes

“In the carefree days before 1914, when collars and incomes were high and taxation low, the acme of smartness was to be seen with a girl from a George Edwardes show at the Gaiety, driving a 90 h.p. Mercedes with well-polished brass fittings and a well-raked steering column . . .” — D. Scott-Moncrieff in “Three Pointed Star” (Cassell 1955 & 1958). 

In Motor Sport for January 1982 I wrote at some length about the Sixty Mercedes, with justification I hope, that veteran having been quite exceptional for its era, as the sparkling performances put up by the 1903 example owned by Roger Collings, in almost every appropriate type of competition, must endorse beyond any doubt. However, the 60 h.p. model, stupendous as was its speed and reliability in the veteran years, was a 1902/03 production and as motoring became more acceptable it could hardly help but become out-dated, with its low-tension ignition, and scroll-clutch, in a comparatively short-wheelbase chassis. For those who wanted, and could afford, the very newest thing in the automobile firmament, Daimler-Benz had to offer a replacement. This next excitement from Stuttgart, Unterturkheim, was the 90 h.p. Mercedes.

The 90 h.p. model we are concerned with here is the one that got into the catalogues and the showrooms, not those racing Mercedes of this h.p.-rating which had been prepared for the 1903 Gordon Bennett race in Ireland, were destroyed in a fire at the factory (Jenatzy winning nevertheless, on a borrowed Sixty Mercedes, stripped for action), but which emerged to run in the ill-fated Paris-Madrid contest and in subsequent races. The devastation caused by the fire was wiped-out quickly by typical hard work on the part of the German work-force and the new Ninety Mercedes emerged towards the end of 1903. Several were immediately shipped to America where they were delivered to illustrious owners such as W. K. Vanderbilt, Junr., H. W. Fletcher in New York and J. B. Warden, who had come in fifth on a Sixty Mercedes in the Paris-Madrid race. By 1905 another was in the possession of Theodore Dorfer, the rich Trieste brewer, according to historian Bunty Scott-Moncrieff. It is difficult, at this distance in time, to know whether there were production-model 90 h.p. cars or the racing cars, but those which scored successes in the Nice Automobile Week of 1904 were presumably the latter.

In fact, the Ninety Mercedes was not really to be bought by more ordinary customers (if any customer for a Mercedes can be described as ordinary!) in Germany until 1906. By then, larger racing Mercedes, like the 100 h.p. model and the celebrated 120 h.p. car, had appeared, but the fact that in May 1904 Baron de Caters set a new flying kilometre record at Ostend at 97¼ m.p.h. on his new Ninety, of which he had taken delivery that month, must have enhanced anticipation for the new more touring 90 h.p. model.

If this exciting new Mercedes was available in Germany by 1906, at a time when the Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft was turning to big six-cylinder models as well, it was some considerable time before it arrived in Great Britain, by which time its lusty four-cylinder engine may have seemed inferior to some, compared with that of the 75 h.p. six-cylinder Mercedes, the first of which to come to England, in 1907, was bought by the Duke of Westminster. On the other hand, rumour was circulating to the effect that the earlier 100 h.p. six-cylinder racing Mercedes was one of the few cars of this great and illustrious make to lack complete reliability. Although rumour was ever a fickle jade and this was in any case a racing car, this may have prejudiced some customers against having six-cylinder engines beneath the bonnets of their Edwardian Mercedes.

It wasn’t until its appearance at the 1912 Motor Show that the full impact of the Ninety Mercedes was felt here. It followed the earlier theme of a very large four-cylinder power unit and final-drive by side chains but it had several improved items of specification. For instance, the 130 x 180 mm. (9,557 c.c.) engine had all its valves overhead, two exhaust and a single inlet valve per cylinder, set vertically and operated by push-rods and rockers, in contrast to the i.o.e. layout of the Sixty, the inlet valves of the 90 h.p. engine being on the off-side and the exhaust valves being on the near-side, giving a cross-flow head. Instead of low-tension ignition with the make-and-break mechanism inside the cylinders, the Ninety Mercedes had a Bosch h.t. magneto, firing two plugs per cylinder.

The cylinders were still cast in pairs of two. The carburetter fed into a large external inlet manifold and on the near-side near-vertical exhaust pipes covered with flexible brass tubing dropped outside the bonnet into the silencer, giving a sporting feature which Mercedes were long to retain. The crankshaft of the Ninety ran in four plain bearings, and these and the big-ends were lubricated by pressure from a plunger-type oil-pump driven from the spindle of the pump that sent water through the radiator, the latter flat-fronted at first, but an imposing vee-fronted “cooler” on the 1913 cars. Jets supplied oil to the exposed o.h.-valve-gear, and the supply of lubricant was contained in the off-side crankcase bracket.

The once-famous Mercedes scroll clutch had been replaced by a leather-lined double-cone clutch on the 90 h.p. chassis but its gearbox, incorporating the differential and counter-shafts for the driving chains, was the same as on other Mercedes and, indeed, on most big Edwardian chain-drive cars. It gave four forward speeds and had a shoe-brake on each side of it, applied separately by means of individual brake-pedals, making (according to a contemporary report) five pedals in all! (I suppose the rear-wheel brakes could be put on by both a pedal and the hand-lever, and that another pedal would be needed for the clutch, perhaps also withdrawing the counter-shaft brakes, as was often done in those days. If so, and with a foot-accelerator, the five pedals are accounted for.) The countershaft and rear-wheel brakes of this enormous motor-car were all water-cooled, and no doubt the idea of having the former applied by independent pedals was to be able to use one and then the other on long descents, so as to keep things cool . . . The final-drive chains were by Reynolds, a tribute to the British Company I presume, and were usually encased, adjustment being by side radius-rods. The tyre size was 935 x 135.

According to David Scott-Moncrieff, the Ninety Mercedes was not shown here until the 1912 Olympia Show, and again at the 1913 Show, when a bronze-green Salmons torpedo-bodied example was on the Mercedes stand, equipped with Bleriot gas headlamps. Known officially as the 80/90 h.p model in this country but usually referred to as a Ninety, the chassis-price in 1914 exceeded that of the well-established 40/50 h.p. Rolls-Royce by £165, at £1,150, and had been reduced by £125 from the cost in 1913.

Although these great 80/90 h.p. Mercedes must have looked imposing in the showrooms of British Mercedes Ltd., The Motor calling them “mighty” and The Autocar saying they were “chassis specially prepared for the motorist of sporting proclivities and for Continental touring, obviously their especial forte being grande tourisme“, some experts regarded the Ninety Mercedes as a ponderous car, less-well-balanced and less-sporting than the veteran Sixty. However, with the better breathing from the overhead valves, it must have had an impressive performance in spite of its long wheelbase of 11′ 7” and 85 m.p.h., with 75 m.p.h. on third speed, at about 1,350 r.p.m., has been spoken of in respect of a Ninety when it was 19 years old. . .

Incidentally, the famous pre-1914 premises of Milnes-Daimler Mercedes Ltd., where Walter Dewis was Manager, were at 132-135 Long Acre, London, WC and it is about time someone with time to spare researched the matter of where those showrooms were and what the site is like today: the street numbering may well have been changed but that did not stop Sherlock Holmes’ enthusiasts from discovering the whereabouts of 22IB, Baker Street. . . .!

At the time when the Ninety was introduced to the British motoring public, Mercedes were offering a range of a dozen different models, the fine 45/50 hp retaining a T-head engine, while the Knight sleeve-valve-engined models had already appeared. So it is not easy to distinguish one from another, particularly as the German horse-power designations differed from the British ones and there were 60, 65, 70 and 75 hp models to cause confusion. Fortunately, we are concerned here only with the 90 h.p. although even this, it seems, was called the 37/90 h.p. model in Germany.

Before the holocaust of 1914 the Mercedes was held in high regard here, as it is today, and with the close connections between the British and German Royal Families and the fact that HM King Edward VII had taken delivery of a 45 h.p. Mercedes in 1908 and had a 65 h.p. model in the following year must have raised the maker’s status symbol and caused many distinguished people in this country to acquire cars of this make. Among them was Count Louis Zborowski, who ran a sporting 75 h.p. or 90 h.p. Mercedes, probably when in his teens.

How many found their way to Brooklands it is difficult to say, for again so many Mercedes types were raced there, old models, ex-Grand Prix machines, and so on. However, it is possible that the car Mr. Dewis entered for Tate to drive in the 1912 Mercedes Handicap was a Ninety; in winning, it lapped at 86.32 m.p.h., however, which may suggest that it was something else, especially as, later, Dario Resta got the car round at 86.15 m.p.h. (but the engine bore and stroke fit), and A. W. Tate’s 9½-litre Mercedes was lapping at nearly 90 m.p.h. by 1913, as was another such Mercedes driven in 1914 by F. R. Samson for Mr. Dewis. 

At Brooklands after the war, when the 90 h.p. cars were out-dated, I rather think the Mercedes driven by Major R. F. Cooper, Zborowski’s friend, early in 1921 (lap speed: 73.78 m.p.h.), may have been one of these (perhaps Lou’s old one?), although if so its engine size was mis-declared (or can someone say whether there was a 130 x 170 mm. four-cyclinder Mercedes?). In 1922 D. D. Phillips entered a white Ninety, which fizzled out. In about 1931 I used to be intrigued to see a big white 90 h.p. Mercedes with the vee-radiator, two outside exhaust pipes, and practically no bodywork, storm up Streatham Hill, in S. London, late on summer Sunday evenings, when streams of traffic were returning from the seaside, many of the cars and combinations therein running backwards as they attempted the re-start after the many traffic hold-ups. In the dimly-lit mêlée it was, to say the least, impressive to see the ancient monster make such light work of the hill, usually passing on the far-side of the long line of stationary or slow-moving vehicles. It duly got its picture in The Autocar and from letters in Motor Sport, some quite recently, I learned that this exciting Merc. was driven by a pilot, B. A. Blythe, based at Heston, who was apparently, when I saw him, returning from a late landing at Croydon Airport. I think it was this Mercedes that Kent Karslake used for one of his “Veteran Types” series of articles which were a feature of Motor Sport at the time, following his epoch-making piece entitled “Where Are The Veterans?”, which later sparked-off the interest of the VSCC in the more exciting early specimens, like Heal’s 1910 10-litre Fiat and Clutton’s 1908 12-litre GP Itala.

The Ninety Mercedes Karslake sampled, and for which the afore-quoted performance estimates were the owner’s and, I would think, were somewhat optimistic, had had its original carburetter replaced by an SU. I do not know what became of this car.

When, just prior to another World War, Cecil Clutton of the VSCC called out those Edwardian monsters, the search revealed quite a number. These included a Ninety Mercedes found in a field in Berkshire, if I remember correctly, by D. B. Tubbs. I think it had been a fire-engine at one time, and was thought to be a “Chitty-Bang-Bang,” but it turned out to be a 90 h.p. Mercedes. I think it is possibly the one which was later restored and appeared in VSCC races at different times after the war, it may, in fact, be the car which Jack Williamson’s daughter and her husband have recently rebuilt again, and to which my friend Edward Eves of Autocar has beaten me in having a drive on. Early in 1938 I discovered an all-black vee-radiator Ninety languishing under dust-sheets at the Cricklewood depot of the Corscia Coachwork Company, a car last-registered in 1919, with the four exhaust pipes, a Zenith carburettor, Zeiss headlamps, and a new Corscia two-door four-seater sports body. It belonged to a Capt. Belleville but I have never seen it again. In fact, not many of these great motor-cars, so typical of the carefree pre-war age, have survived, but W. F. Smith drove one, unless I am mistaken, on a post-war rally to Germany.

W.B.