1952 Mercedes-Benz 220A

1952 Mercedes-Benz 220A Cabriolet For consignment, a real stunner in the form of a 1952 Mercedes Benz 220A which was restored in the early 1980s. It comes with a slew of receipts, restoration documents, the owners manual, and has its fitted Karl Baisch 3 piece custom crafted luggage in the trunk. This example is in near showroom concours condition and runs like a Swiss watch with German Panzer construction and Italian styling. Very international, very nice and only one of 1,278 cars in this form. Exterior Possible appearing a bit snobbish with its looking down its nose bezeled headlights with signals on top and a central large vertical grille which holds Mercedes and Deutschland commemorative badges. The grille, headlights, turn signals, driving lights and lower bumper are all pristinely preserved chromed works of art individually. Curved fenders flank a V shaped hood with plenty of side ventilation and gracefully make the ascent to cover the wheels and tires, then take a curved dive downward to form a running board that dies into the rear fenders. These are also rounded over and beautifully designed with perfect proportion in mind. Suicide front hinged doors have fancy actuators and when closed do so with a wonderful tight quality thud that can be heard in vehicles today, along with well minded gaps. A black top in perfect canvas is covering the passengers and a folding working Landau bar is adding some old world class to the sides of the top. In back a small glass trimmed window is allowing the driver to look behind through the rear view mirror. A very graceful crescent shape takes over for the rear deck and trunk lid. Here it meets up with the rear quarters, which emulate the curve and take the dive downward together. Just next to the tops of the rear quarters are the half bullet shaped signal lights mounted on either side. At the bottom of the curve are the tail lighting on either corner of the rear fenders. Just below is another shiny bumper framing the bottom of the trunk. It has vertical rabbit ears on as well. When the top is in the down position there is no tonneau covering and it has a unique and tasteful look. Steel wheels are painted in silver and have encircling chrome accenting on their edges around the Mercedes star center caps. These are wrapped in thin red striped 185-15 radial tires all around. No rust, just silver paint in very good condition with just a slight patina and a few flaws, but still looking good 40 years after its redux. Interior A swing of the rear hinged doors shows off the beautiful deep oxblood red leather door coverings. These have top vertical tuck and roll panels bordered by a delineating chromed trimmed swoop which separates the tuck and roll from the smooth leather lowers. A chromed pull, actuator and window crank are all here along with a small armrest which dies into the backs of the doors. Clean walnut burl wood sill is framing the tops of these doors and inside, Oxblood leather, perfectly stitched into two large bucket seats take up the interior but allow ample room. These seats have wonderfully chromed hinges and push forward to reveal a nice storage area all carpeted in oxblood red that can be folded to expose the small rear seat. In front, the dash is nothing short of stunning. Here we have walnut wood rounded burl mixing with oxblood leather padded vertical panels. These oxblood panels house the black faced gauges with white lettering, and come in many shapes, but mostly circular with chromed bezels surrounding them. In the center in a wood finished square rodded over metal panel, a round vintage Becker multi-band radio dial is flanked by 4 knobs for station tuning and volume. The rounded dash top also in walnut has an ashtray and lighter. On the dash bottom is a lineup of slider knobs, pulls and the ignition with chrome trim on their edges. The large factory steering wheel has nice polished trimming and is presented in black bakelite which is highly polished. Beautiful perfect red/oxblood carpeting floods the floors and is ultra clean. A shout to the trunk where we can note the spare tire and jack along with a correct set of hand made Karl Baisch branded luggage to match this car is strapped on shelving on top. Talk about adding value! Drivetrain Under the slightly V shaped hood is the correct and rebuilt during the restoration 2.2 Liter SOHC inline 6 cylinder engine. It has a Solex 30 PAAJ 2-barrel carburetor on top and presents well with just light patina on some of the black painted components. Bolted to the back is the requisite 4-speed manual transmission which in turn sends power rearwar to the 4.44 rear axle. Undercarriage Some patina, some road dirt, but all structurally sound mechanical German engineering under here. Tube framing is way overdone, and is seen throughout the undercarriage. Drum braking is also on all corners as is independent coil spring suspension. Single exhaust is in charge of the exhale and remains strong with just a few light areas of surface rust on the piping. Drive-Ability A wonderful piece of Mercedes History and working like a clock. It starts right up, and runs smoothly and the performance is well above par for cars of the era. All functions save for the clock were operating as they should and I was even able to dial in a bit of short wave radio chatter. Plenty of vintage receipts dating back to 1962 for the repairs that were performed. There is also engine and restoration receipts from 1982-83. The paint still holds its luster, as does the trimmings and near concours interior. A fine car with beautiful post war design, custom luggage, and like new Landau working bar top. Im Luxushimmel!!!