Whilst other luxury car manufactures were posting performance figures of "Adequate" Mercedes threw the luxury car rule book out of the window and built this a 4 door Saloon car that offered super car performance! In fact they opted to put the largest European built engine in a European car since WW2, a dry sumped 6834cc V8! This created the quickest-accelerating and fastest saloon car in the world reaching 100 km/h (62 mph) in 7.4 seconds and 240 km/h (149 mph) top speed. As well as achieving this straight line performance, Mercedes made it handle as well. The 450 SEL 6.9 had the first full four-wheel hydropneumatic suspension system from Mercedes-Benz and was the world’s first passenger car to be fitted with modern form of ABS, electronic four-wheel multi-channel anti-lock braking system from Bosch, in 1978, Mercedes over engineering at its finest.

#w116 #450sel #m100engine #oldbenz
source: classic-car-london.com