Step Again In Time And Tour The Mercedes Manufacturing facility Constructing The First Ever S-Class

Folks love saying that “they do not make them like they used to,” with “them” referring to every little thing from breakfast cereals to plane. Now, you may step inside an previous Mercedes manufacturing facility to discover precisely how they did used to construct them, with this explicit “them” being the long-lasting W116 S-Class.

The W116 was produced by Mercedes between 1972 and 1980 at its Sindelfingen manufacturing facility in Germany, which has about 100 years of historical past constructing vehicles for Mercedes-Benz. Again within the Seventies, Mercedes let a movie crew onto the manufacturing facility flooring to see the way it assembled its first S-Class, and the ensuing movie is a cacophony of handbook labor, controversial trend decisions, and rudimentary car-building robots (since properly upgraded) on the manufacturing facility flooring.

The movie begins with a glance into a number of levels of the event of the W116. There are technical drawings displaying the design of the automotive, clay fashions of the completed design, and photographs of the W116’s V8 engine present process assessments on a dyno rig. 

As soon as the event of the automotive was full, it was displayed on the Paris Motor Present again in fall 1972, the place the W116 made its public debut. After that, Mercedes was able to kick off mass manufacturing of the brand new flagship.

The primary stage of the construct for the automotive begins on the press store, the place huge sheets of metal are lower all the way down to measurement and stamped to type the physique panels of the W116. Large presses churn out fenders, wheel arches, and different panels which can be important for the vehicles. The metal chassis of the automotive is then assembled and the physique panels are lined as much as be welded into place.

At this level, the hood is connected up entrance and the doorways are additionally bolted into place. The entire welds on the automotive are then smoothed over and the shell of the automotive is checked by Mercedes engineers.

As soon as it is signed off, the body of the S-Class is dipped into an enormous tank that is full of a particular liquid to assist forestall the metal work from corroding over time. The underside of the automotive can be sprayed to deal with the surfaces, earlier than primer is utilized to the bodywork and several other layers of paint are sprayed on high. 

Over the subsequent few levels of manufacturing, staff crowd round every body becoming the dashboard and inside, in addition to the liner for the trunk of the automotive. The wiring is all woven into the automotive at this stage, and all method of checks are carried out on the elements as they’re bolted into place.

Trim items on the outside, headlights and taillights are the subsequent to go in, earlier than the gleaming Mercedes grille is fitted up entrance. Lastly, the home windows and chrome particulars are fitted to the automotive earlier than it’s handed off to the subsequent division.

Whereas all that is happening, one other space of the plant assembles the transmissions and engines that, as soon as full, are joined collectively and dropped into place on the entrance of the S-Class. The axles and different mechanical elements are put in, earlier than the wheels will be fitted at every nook and the completed automotive is handed over to high quality management for a full swimsuit of checks.

The manufacturing facility that each one that is filmed at remains to be owned and operated by Mercedes-Benz, and it nonetheless builds the S-Class there to today. The manufacturing traces have all been refined and up to date through the years — as has the S-Class itself — so now the plant churns out greater than 200,000 vehicles yearly. On the time that this movie was produced, the output was nearer to 100,000 items per yr.

If you wish to head inside extra previous factories to see how issues was once executed, head right here to see how the bizarre three-engined DC-10 was constructed again within the Nineteen Sixties.