Introduction

Ponton A models

180(D)/190(D)

W120/W121

219

W105

220/220S/220SE

W180/W128

To the design engineers and production workers, the whole Heckflosse range were known as the Ponton B models.

Ponton B models
1959-1965		1965-1968
Badge on the car	W number	Badge on the car	W number
190(c), 190D(c)	W110	200, 200D	W110
220(b), 220S(b), 220SE(b)	W111	230	W110
300SE, 300SE LWB	W112	230S	W111

Officially, the190 models received a small letter "c" to distinguish them from the earlier 190 models. The same applies for the 220 models, they received a small letter "b" to distinguish them from the earlier models. But it is obvious that both small letters never could be found on the back of the cars.

The cars were build during a period of great expansion for Mercedes. Nearly 973.000 Heckflossen were built over a period of nine years, and sold all over the world as Mercedes moved into new territories, especially the American market. So familiar did they become in the 1960s that it was (and still is) easy to forget that they embodied a number of very important engineering advances. By this time, there was once again a certain cachet outside Germany about owning a Mercedes-Benz. Memories of the German nation as the enemies of Western democracy which had persisted into the 1950s were now dying. The Heckflossen now became the cars which other manufacturers around the world looked up to and attempted to copy.