Mercedes-Benz 300SEL 6.3 vs Daimler Double Six (Part 2)

The Benz is upright and bluff. While the Double Six is all about smooth lines, the Benz is a piece of restrained industrial design – elegant but primarily functional. Finished in metallic green with a tan leather interior (velour was standard), this 6.3 is just the sort of transportation you’d want for the run to your chalet in Gstaad at serious gasped.

This example, indeed supplied new to Switzerland, is now owned by local enthusiast Richard Gauntlett. It has stacked halogen headlamps, the optional ‘Mexican hat’ alloy wheels, a sunroof and tinted front windscreen. The driver’s door opens with a metallic click and shuts with a guillotine snap! and as you climb inside you notice the massive, overstuffed armchair. The large steering wheel is pure Mercedes-Benz with its smooth rim and fat central boss. The 6.3 has a dinky rev counter added to the instrument panel right in the line of sight – not really necessary as the short-stroke V8 produces its 250bhp at a lowly 4000rpm and the four-speed automatic gearbox knows just when to upshift.

Daimler Double Six

Fire up the Mercedes and the engine maintains a steady but busy idle as all of its mechanical complications spring to life. Close the door and instantly all is quiet. The gear stick is a surprisingly slim chromed lever with an exposed, serrated gate. If Ferrari had built an auto-box in the 1960s, it would have looked like this. You have four forward ratios, making the car unusually advanced for its time.

Select ‘4’ and the transmission hooks up with a think. The throttle pedal is typically Mercedes and wooden in feel, but press a bit harder and the gargantuan V8 awakes. This really is a traffic-light-to-traffic-light dragster . It erupts when you give it the juice, and when the lights go green this big old saloon morphs into a quarter-mile king. The acceleration is analogue and you feel every yard of road being pulverized by the big-block V8. The 300SEL6.3 is a hysterical, tire shredding muscle car dressed up like a Limo and probably still the ultimate Q-car.

Imagine gunning down the runway in a private jet in near-silence. That's the double six

The Daimler Double Six arrives without a sound. It appears suddenly, as if from nowhere, exquisite in dark Oxford blue, its chrome trim highlighted by the urban glow. The windows are of dark Sundym glass, and as the car sits under a streetlamp the deep oxblood red leather upholstery is bathed in a slinky low light. Very nightclub. Details include special chrome pressed wheels and a red, hand-painted coach line running down each flank. This Double Six is uncannily immaculate, but then it has been provided by specialist Graeme Hunt of Kensington. The man is fastidious.

Stuffed with horsehair and springs, the chair is mercifully nothing like today’s extruded orthopedic plastic seats, smudged with cheap leather.

Open the smallish driver’s door and the aroma of Connolly leather wafts around you like expensive eau de cologne. The driver’s seat is set low and it immediately feels snug and smaller than the Benz offering. Stuffed with horsehair and springs, the chair is mercifully nothing like today’s extruded orthopedic plastic seats, smudged with cheap leather. The burr walnut dashboard with its regiment of Smiths instruments is a joy – who ever complained about wooden dashes? made extra special by the added Daimler switches mounted below the toggles. This car has the optional extra headrests, too; Sir William Lyons never wanted to see the seats above the window line. Clearly he never had a dalliance with Ms. Whiplash.

Start the V12 and nothing seems to happen apart from the Daimler gently rocking for a second on the torque. Then silence. Ease the T-bar back into ‘Drive’ and hit the throttle. Imagine gunning down a runway in a private jet in near-silence. That’s the Double Six. Power seems to swell and the whole car picks itself up and lunges forwards in a rush of quiet pace – without appearing to try at all. Seated low, you feel you are in a sports car until you glance behind and remember the rear seats.

The steering is American-market light but we are now used to that with modern cars, so it’s no problem. Cosseted within the car’s monocoque, you feel the suspension working around you. Soft and supple, the V12 is neither willowy nor vague. It is simply frightfully fast and terribly refined. The brakes haul it up with authority and the gearbox, well, it doesn’t really matter: with this much torque any one of the three forward gears is just fine. But Graeme Hunt suggests I snick the gear selector back into second and hold it there. Then, easing the throttle pedal down to the Wilton carpet, the Daimler’s V12 spins up and we really start to fly. Oh my.

Daimler double six from back

So which one to choose? Difficult. Actually , really difficult. This comparison is not entirely fair because the Benz is a 1969 model and it was out of production when the Daimler Double Six was introduced in 1972. But the Mercedes cost about twice as much as the Daimler and I suppose I expected the 6.3 to live up to its enormous reputation. I did not expect the Double Six to be anywhere near as capable as it evidently is. I thought it might appear cheap and nasty when parked side-by-side with the expensive Mercedes-Benz, but that’s not the case at all.

Both of these cars represent the absolute pinnacle of mechanical engineering reached in Western Europe before the spurious oil crisis hit in 1973. Thereafter most motorists ran headlong for economical mundanely and far away from this sort of automotive leviathan. Outmoded as they may now appear when compared to modern fuel-sipping machines, both vehicles remain extremely fast and capable. The Benz 6.3 is an undisputed icon and an efficient tool with a surprisingly well developed sense of (German) humor. But the Daimler Double Six is just as quick and effective, and has an added dose of civility – one that is tempered by a whiff of arrogant insouciance that I just can’t resist. Two sixes beats a six and a three.