What an opportunity - the chance to drive the oldest surviving Mercedes-Benz in India - and that too one that's functional! Driving a 500bhp car or doing 300Km/h down an autobahn or track is great fun but driving a part of history is always a little bit more exciting. In fact, I would trade the speed and power for a chance to drive an old car with a fascinating story behind it any given day! So when I was asked if I wanted to get behind the wheel of the special vintage Mercedes-Benz, there was really no way I was going to let that opportunity go.
1911 Benz 8/20 HP
The car in question is a 1911 Benz 8/20 HP or sometimes referred to as the 8/20 HP Runabout Tourer for its body style. Imported sometime in 1912 and bought by the PCM family from Madurai, the car has been owned by one single family for the last 105 years! Now in itself is possibly a record of some sort! Coming back to the car, the 8/20 HP features, as the name suggests, a 20 hp engine. The petrol engine itself is a 2.0-litre motor. The 8 in the 8/20 indicated the taxable horsepower.
1911 Benz 8/20 HP Engine
This practice was common in the early days of motoring with many cars of this era featuring this nomenclature. Essentially, the first number needs to be multiplied by 250 to find out the cubic capacity of the car and tax would be levied accordingly on each car. The 8/20 seen here was the smallest Benz in the catalogue in its day - the equivalent of the modern day A-Class or CLA perhaps.
Rajesh Somasundaram with the 1911 Benz 8/20 HP
The current owner Rajesh Somasundaram, grandson of the original owner spoke to us about how the car was frequently used till about 1965 after which it was garaged as it had some mechanical issues. In fact, the car was on one of its regular Madurai to Madras trips when the fault popped up and the Benz limped home. Around 2014, the family decided to give the car another lease on life and entrusted C S Ananth in Chennai with a full restoration. C S Ananth headed to Mercedes-Benz and its restoration facility in Stuttgart armed with photographs but the experts at the facility said that the car was beyond repair and should be laid to rest.
1911 Benz 8/20 HP Carriage
Not being one to take no for an answer, C S Ananth returned to Chennai and took on the challenge of restoring the car by himself. In its many years of use in India, the car had gone through a ton of practical but un-original modifications in order to make the car easy to use.
For example, the original honeycomb radiator leaked making the car overheat. A truck radiator with a different surround was used but since that did not fit, a new bonnet was made. The new bonnet in turn needed different fenders to go along with it as the original ones needed to be cut. In fact, due to all the modifications, it was difficult to actually know what model the car was until some original photographs of the car were found in the PCM family records.
1911 Benz 8/20 HP Head-lamps
Further records also revealed a detailed series of communications from the original owner to the Benz factory in Germany where every single modification was explained and detailed. And these communications did not go without reply - Benz actually responded to them with all the help it could offer! Imagine doing this in today's day and age! Of course, more practical modifications like different wheels and tyres along with a set of electrical headlamps were also added at some point to make the car more usable.
1911 Benz 8/20 HP Side
Getting the car back to original was a task as the only literature available on this model year was a German owners' manual! The fenders, bonnet and all of the trim including the radiator surround had to be custom built by hand in order to return to original specifications. The radiator itself had to be custom ordered and took months to arrive. The engine, gearbox and rear axle was in decent condition and thus was completely overhauled and rebuilt. Of course, like with almost every car of the era, the 1911 Benz does not have conventional controls.
1911 Benz 8/20 HP
You do get three pedals on the floor. The one of the left is the clutch pedal but the one in the centre is the throttle pedal with the brake on the extreme right. The gear shifter itself is outside the car and so it the parking brake. To engage the gear, you have to press the clutch pedal down (which by itself is much harder than I thought it would be) and disengage the parking brake. You then have to press a button on the shifter and find the slot that takes the gearbox out of the neutral and shift upwards to engage first gear. Although the clutch bite point does take some getting used to, once the Benz starts to get going, it is surprisingly peppy for a 105-year-old car! We would also like to add that the fact that this car has a 4-speed gearbox is quite extraordinary as most cars of its time has a three speed. The light throttle does make it easy once you get going but if you want to shift gears, a double de-clutch action is a must and if you have never driven a classic car, driving this would be next to impossible. In fact, I have been lucky enough to have driven some pretty old vintage and classic cars but the Benz 8/20 is most certainly the most difficult one I have gotten behind the wheel of! It is also one of the most rewarding if you get it right.
1911 Benz 8/20 HP
The steering box - which is also original and was overhauled - is mechanical and has no power assistance whatsoever. In fact, like later cars, it does not even have a self centring setup which means you have to constantly keep correcting yourself (while still accounting for steering play) in order to keep it in a straight line. The turning circle too is quite large and taking right angle turns is an act that needs to be thought out and performed with pinpoint precision. Oh and did I mention about how the car does not have a starter and you have to use the crank handle in the front to get it going. And before you can do that, you have to de-compress the fuel pump and prime it so that it can feed petrol to the carburettor. Now imagine doing all of this in the pouring rain when your 'Sahab' is impatiently waiting in the back seat to get going. I have a whole new level of respect for both the drivers and the owners of these cars who used them daily back in the day! Once you get the car going and up to speed though, it is an absolute dream and the engine chugs along with no hassles whatsoever. Of course, we did not dare to try how fast we could go although we were told we could easily go up to about 60km/h if the road conditions were good enough.
1911 Benz 8/20 HP
This car will last another 100 years just due to how simple it actually is and will, in all probability, outlast almost every single Mercedes-Benz produced today. After over five decades of never being seen in public, the 8/20 baby Benz is quite overdue its recognition as a part of Indian automotive history. In fact, considering the fact that it has been invited to the 2017 Cartier Concours d'Elegance shows how important this particular car actually is.
We would like to thank the current owner Rajesh Somasundaram and the PCM family along with C S Ananth who gave us access to this gem, and also the chance to drive the lovely machine. We do wish the car another century of faithful service.
