Test drive Mercedes-Benz 630 K: the power of a giant
An unforgettable walk with a precious pre-war veteran.
Muscle control instead of gestures – with the Mercedes-Benz 630 K we are traveling back in time when driving was still an adventure. Here we meet Karl, Ferdinand and serious problems.
I digress a bit and wonder if it's not more philosophically correct to say that we're not creating the future, but our own past. Because everything we build for the future, once it gets there, becomes an ever-growing and unchanging past. However, here we come to a crossroads, and it brings me back to the present - a particularly striking expression is found in the appearance of this massive oak, resistant to countless storms, opposite the moment when I find myself on the pedals. At least I'm trying to find them. If I lose, I will forever go down in history as the man who wrecked a priceless 850 Mercedes-Benz for 000 1929 euros. Now do you understand what we are talking about? Brakes! What was I to do?
Car inventors
It was 1929. Then these 630 K were produced. The car as such is only 43 years old, its inventor is alive - Karl Benz witnessed the rise of his creation and the decline of Benz & Cie, which, at the insistence of Deutsche Bank, merged on June 28, 1926 with its oldest competitor Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft. For the younger ones, it's the same as if Steve Jobs had to experience the Apple-Samsung merger.
In the 1920s, the automobile industry was small and in crisis. If in 1924 there were 86 car manufacturers in Germany, in 1929 there were only 17. At that time, 6,345 million cars were produced worldwide (in 2014: 89,747 million). In Germany, 422 vehicles (now 812 million) drive 44,4 km of roads, 300 percent of which are gravel. But numbers are just numbers, and we want to experience the past as a time machine. Even if it costs 000 euros.
That's a plate price of up to 630 K, which, although in a scenic location in the Mercedes-Benz Museum, can be bought and exported at any time, according to Patrick Gottwick, sales consultant for Mercedes-owned classic trading company. and neoclassical All Time Stars models. In support of his words, as soon as I remove the tarpaulin from the cab to see how the pedals are positioned (horror!), Three strong gentlemen walk up and push the car out.
Veyron of the twenties
The 630 is an evolutionary version with a Mercedes 3,40/24/100 PS wheelbase shortened to 140 m. why not in this high circle of automotive society?). The premiere of the original model was celebrated from 10 to 18 December 1924 at the Berlin Motor Show. At the beginning of 1926, the design was improved with a frame with leaf springs and became 630. From October 1928, the K variant with a compressor was also offered. With these models
Mercedes-Benz wins Grand Prix starts. These are highway racing cars; 630 K costs about 27 Reichsmarks - as many as six beautiful apartments. Yes, it fits the Bugatti Veyron category today. You can't just set fire to a car like that and drive it over.
First, Mercedes-Benz Classic workshop project manager Michael Plug and my ladyship and I check tire pressures and oil and water levels. Then we set the ignition to a delay, press the start button (the electric starter was introduced in 1912 on the Cadillac), and nearly stun as the engine fires a cannonade. Each of the six cylinders protruding in a row of this massive unit has a volume of 1040 cm³. With a cylinder diameter of 94 mm, a stroke of 150 mm is obtained. Fifteen centimeters of piston stroke - it is not surprising that vibrations shake the entire machine, to the frame of which the engine is attached.
In an attempt to quell the furious engine, Plug informs me that this 630 has a Tourer-style body made at the Sindelfingen plant. The manufacturer offered six bodies, and the installation of the superstructure on the chassis took a year. Alternatively, customers can buy a chassis with an engine and order a separate body for it - for example, from Saoutchik, Hibbard & Darrin, Papler, Neuss or Derham.
When the top of the radiator is hot enough to almost burn yourself, the car is already hot. We go inside, Plug gets behind the wheel, as always. When such a Mercedes was delivered to a customer, the company always sent an experienced mechanic to explain to the owner, or rather to the driver, the technical characteristics of the car, the rules of maintenance and repair, which lasted several days or weeks. But, first of all, it was necessary to teach how to drive 630 K. And here there really is a lot to learn.
Gas in the middle! Brakes on the right!
The plugin rode for an hour, during which I watched it, trying to figure out how it all works. Having driven the car out of the city, he stopped at the outskirts of the village. Show time.
A few months ago I had the opportunity to fly the 300 SL. But my friends, compared to the 630 K “winged” it is easy to drive, like a Nissan Micra. The K-model has a non-synchronized four-speed straight-tooth gearbox. At first, you are reassured that switching to it is always accompanied by a creak and rumble. But there was only a slight ringing on the Plug. Now - we press the clutch (at least in the same place as today - on the left). A little gas, smoothly but firmly we turn on the gear. An intimidating squeak is heard if the definition in question is too small or too large. Release the parking brake. Gas. Release the clutch. The car bounces. We are moving! After a while, even in second gear (clutch, intermediate throttle, shift, clutch), and soon in third. Then the road suddenly decides to get tangled up in a serpentine.
Lelemaykoamisega! We stop (right pedal), press the clutch, disengage from speed, move the lever from the right channel to the left, apply intermediate gas (middle pedal), shift into gear, give more gas (middle pedal), but stop harder (right pedal), Attention, the engine is starting to stall because you took your foot off the accelerator (middle pedal) to apply the brake (right pedal), so we give more gas (middle pedal), release the clutch. Damn, the gear is out of gear, we press the clutch again, the accelerator (middle pedal, Renz, a fool like that), shift into gear properly, release the clutch and now turn-turn-turn, which is a rather unusual pull-pull-pull heavy steering , give on the gas (middle pedal), quickly pull the steering wheel back so that it does not remain in the turned position. Still gas (middle pedal), K climbs into the slope at a frantic speed of 431 Nm. And at a speed of 40 km / h. And all the time you ask yourself: how did they do all this in the past. While preparing for the Mille Miglia, Manfred von Brauchitsch drove 40 kilometers in a Mercedes compressor on unpaved Italian roads. A whole world trip on such a machine - and today we feel exhausted if the back cover does not open with an electric mechanism.
The miles we gain are no, not skills, but something like a limited ability to do 630K. It rides surprisingly friendly and it's comfortable to sit in. But it's also absolutely essential in a car that requires so much effort from the driver. On the straight, Plug yells at me from the right side of the wide front seat, "Now go full throttle!" (Middle Pedal) While pressing the pedal, I use the rod to turn on the Roots compressor, and its two blades begin to force 0,41 bar of compressed air into the carburetor. The furious snort of the engine turns into the high frequency hum of a large, heavy and extremely furious drill. At the same time, the 630K accelerates into fourth gear at a speed that is neither in keeping with its advanced age nor my reflexes. It's intoxicating, and I involuntarily immerse myself in my thoughts. However, this is exactly what you can’t afford when driving at 630 K. At the last moment before the intersection and the oak tree, I step on the right pedal with all my might. The cables to the drum brakes are tightened, the car slows down - in my opinion with calmness inappropriate for the situation, but still on time.
After another half hour of travel to the future, 630 K will be back in the museum. And the past with him will accompany me home. Even there, my clothes will smell like gasoline, oil and headwinds. And about adventure.
Text: Sebastian Renz
Photo: Arturo Rivas
