Mercedes-Benz W03
| Mercedes-Benz Typ 12/55 PS / Typ 300 (W03) |
|
|---|---|
| Overview | |
| Manufacturer | Daimler-Benz AG |
| Also called | 1926–29 Mercedes-Benz 12/55 PS 1929–30: Mercedes-Benz 14/60 PS 1926–27: Mercedes-Benz W03 1927–29: Mercedes-Benz W04 1929–30: Mercedes-Benz W05 1926–28: Mercedes-Benz Typ 300 1928–29: Mercedes-Benz Typ 320 1929–30: Mercedes-Benz Typ 350 |
| Production | 1926–1930 4,432 cars |
| Assembly | Stuttgart, Germany |
| Body and chassis | |
| Body style |
Torpedo bodied “Tourenwagen” 4-door ”Pullman-Limousine” (sedan/saloon) Various coachbuilt bodies supplied by independent coachbuilders |
| Layout | FR layout |
| Powertrain | |
| Engine |
|
| Dimensions | |
| Wheelbase | 3,430 mm (135 in) |
| Length | 4,650 mm (183 in) |
| Width | 1,760 mm (69 in) |
| Height | 1,920 mm (76 in) |
| Chronology | |
| Successor | Mercedes-Benz W10 |
The Mercedes-Benz W03 was a large six-cylinder-engined automobile introduced as the Mercedes-Benz 12/55 PS and, initially, as the Mercedes-Benz Typ 300, by Daimler-Benz at the Berlin Motor Show in October 1926. It was developed in some haste under the manufacturer’s Technical Director, Ferdinand Porsche in parallel with the smaller Mercedes-Benz W 01 (which never progressed beyond the prototype stage) and the two-litre-engined Mercedes-Benz W02 following the creation of Daimler-Benz, formally in July 1926, from the fusion of the Daimler and Benz & Cie auto-businesses.
The manufacturer applied the widely followed German naming conventions of the time. On the Mercedes-Benz 12/55 PS the “12” defined the car’s tax horsepower, used by the authorities to determine the level of annual car tax to be imposed on car owners. The “55” defined the manufacturer’s claims regarding car’s actual power output as defined in Horsepower#Metric horsepower (PS, cv, hk, pk, ks, ch). In Germany tax horsepower, which had been defined by statute since 1906, was based on the dimensions of the cylinders in the engine.
Unlike the systems used elsewhere in Europe, the German tax horsepower calculation took account both of the cylinder bore and of the cylinder stroke, and there was therefore a direct linear relationship between engine size and tax horsepower.
The model was upgraded in 1927 and effectively relaunched in 1929, benefiting from the attentions of who from January 1929, newly appointed as Technical Director, held sole responsibility for model development. The 1927 upgrade saw the car receiving a new works number, the Mercedes-Benz 12/55 PS / Typ 300 (W03) being replaced by the Mercedes-Benz 12/55 PS / Typ 300 (W04). The 1929 relaunch was accompanied by further new works number and a modified name, reflecting the increased horsepower and greater cubic capacity of the enlarged engine introduced that year, now being named the Mercedes-Benz 14/60 PS / Typ 350 (W05).
In retrospect the cars are frequently referred to by company works numbers, as the Mercedes-Benz W03, Mercedes-Benz W04 and Mercedes-Benz W05: this minimises the risk of confusion with other Mercedes-Benz models with names similar to “Mercedes-Benz Typ 300”.
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Wikipedia