Minneapolis Street Sighting: Mercedes 200 fintail

I've always had a fondness for classic Mercedes; some generations more-so than others. I only recently started getting into Mercedes products, and I'm still at the bottom of the learning curve if you will--but I know a good looking car when I see one. I sort of got into these cars last summer, and I obviously still like these; I did shoot a few before I really knew much about them, and this is one of the first fintails I shot--ever.

The reason it's called a fintail is simple-- just look right above the rear decklid. Yes, this Benz had "fins" too, and in my eyes, the Mercedes interpretation looks quite a bit better than the American interpretation. No flashy chrome, and no random emblems, just clean, uncluttered sensible Mercedes styling. Usually, I see these in less-pedestrian colors, but somehow the brown makes this appear to be not as much of a luxury car as it is.

Sadly, the W110/111 cars mark the near-end of good looking Mercedes midsized cars; yes, the W114/115 cars look good, and the W124s do too, but I don't think either of those will ever climb in value the way a good fintail has--but that's just me.

Honestly, since this is one of my earliest "full-car" shoots, the pictures suck; I realize that. But, I do like the color combination depicted here. I often love luxury cars in untraditional colors, and I think the brown over tan works--quite well. Hell, Porsche proves this by offering a Panamera in this combination-- oddly enough, Mercedes makes one pay extra for it via their designo program.

The paint isn't glossy--far from it, and these is nasty fender rot; there's not telling what else this poor car hides under the surface. I imagine it had to be fairly bad, because I never saw this car after that summer (of 2010), shortly later, a brown 1965 Mercedes appeared in a Minnesota U-Pull-It. I wonder if this is it? (Or was, since this car is likely crushed by now). I hope wherever this car did end up, it got stripped of its usable parts if the whole thing wasn't saved.

I hate blogging cars from my archives because more often than not, they're not alive anymore, or they've deteriorated enough that they're not blog fodder anymore. Shame, really, especially considering what a nice car this could've been if it was saved--and what a nice car it was when it was new, too.