Mercedes-Benz 370S Mannheim: miniature masterpiece

By James Elliott

| 2 Oct 2026

Classic & Sports Car – Mercedes-Benz 370S Mannheim: miniature masterpiece

The ‘S’ is for Sport. You need to remember that when this voluptuous 1932 Mercedes-Benz is wheezing asthmatically up a gentle incline.

Well, not that gentle, but surely not enough to bring a car of this purposeful mien to a standstill? Afraid so.

Slow to a halt in second, wait, crash it into first, boot the throttle and creep gently towards the crest.

The pace is far from heart-stopping, but if it was good enough for one-time 370S Mannheim owner Rudi Caracciola…

The elegant Mercedes-Benz 370S Mannheim has the look of the SS, if not the pace

It turns out that our guide Steve Thompson, who looks after this car for Dutch collector Dick van Dijk, is to blame: at 6ft 5in, and with his knees by his ears, he is too tall to drive it.

At first this might seem implausible – it is not, after all, a small car at 4480mm long and 1730mm wide – but a driver change reveals that, from the seat, it is indeed tiny.

The huge wheel prevents virtually all movement, dominating the cabin so you can’t even wind down the window with the door closed.

The huge, long-throw kinked gearlever operating the three-speed ’box is forward of the driver, but close to your right leg, hemming in both of them, especially if you are in the first-to-second-gear plane.

The small pedals sprouting from the floor are low and close together, with barely any travel. Steve might as well have been in a straitjacket.

The Mercedes-Benz 370S Mannheim was among the first models conceived following the merger between Daimler and Benz in 1926

This baby – and the word should be used reservedly for a car weighing 1550kg – SS-alike machine has a lovely cabin though, as it should to complement its sexy lines.

The finish betrays that it is not top-of-the-range, but the elegant simplicity and lack of clutter in its pared-back symmetry is thoroughly engaging and driver friendly.

If only it weren’t for that monolithic wheel half a foot proud of the dashboard and pinning the driver to the seat.

It does look great, but if it’s not an SS – in its day it was strictly a middle-class Mercedes-Benz – what makes this car so special?

The Mercedes-Benz 370S Mannheim is a charming classic car

In a word, rarity. The 15/75 370S Mannheim (WS 10) is the scarcest of the early 1930s Mercedes-Benz 370s, with just 180-odd cars built between 1931 and 1933.

With 80bhp available from a 3663cc straight-six fed by a pair of Solex 35 carburettors, it was not searingly fast even then, but it was good for 80mph – which made it a pretty capable vintage tourer for its day, running a distinctly unflustered compression ratio of 5.5:1.

There were three main variations of the 370 Mannheim, of which more than 1700 were built between 1929 and 1934: the standard car with a wheelbase of 126in; the Kurz (short), which was 119½in; and the 112in Sport (or Special design), which only came in roadster or sport cabriolet form.

The rest of the range encompassed everything from two-seat saloon to limousine.

The Mercedes-Benz 370S Mannheim’s 3.7-litre straight-six has to work hard to push 1550kg

The Mannheim first appeared as a 3-litre in 1926 – the first of the ‘merged Mercs’ after the coming together of Daimler and Benz that year, named after where they were made.

Later, the motor was enlarged for the 14/60 350, with the bigger-engined, single-carburettor 370 following soon yet changing little.

It took the Sport to up the stakes with an extra carburettor, 200kg trimmed off the standard model and a far more ground-hugging figure.

The model was the work of Dr Hans Nibel, who succeeded Ferdinand Porsche at Daimler-Benz.

For the S he came up with a drop-centre frame to lower the centre of gravity and improve the handling.

The Mercedes-Benz 370S Mannheim’s cabin features some beautifully crafted details

At nearly DM14,000 in the early 1930s, it still fell far short of Mercedes-Benz’s seriously expensive top echelons, but was perfect for the upper middle classes with aspirations – the 190SL of its generation.

Like its 1950s descendent, the 370’s styling is conservative, but clean and svelte, the bonnet line just low enough to instill a sense of urgency to its beautifully balanced profile.

Unlike most cars with a chunky, flat, upright radiator grille, it doesn’t lose any dynamism because of it. Instead, thanks to that low-slung chassis and the cut-down doors, it lends the car yet more purpose.

Purpose that it is possible to easily coax out of it on the road, as long as you are not too tall to operate it and can squeeze your legs under the dashboard.

The Mercedes-Benz 370S Mannheim’s neat hood

The underpinnings are relatively prosaic, with rigid axles, underslung split springs at the rear and 5.50x18 tyres on wire wheels, plus braking aided by a Bosch-Dewandre servo.

The turning circle is surprisingly tight at 12m, the 2850mm wheelbase adept for a car of this vintage. Its ride is not in the class of the extravagant American cars of the day, but supple in comparison with most mid-priced Europeans.

Again, the steering feels relatively assured for its era, with minimal wander and decent feedback, the handling sharp, the cornering stable.

The brakes are efficient and, once you have learned to exploit the car’s substantial momentum, it can be chugged along at a more than satisfactory pace.

The Mercedes-Benz 370S Mannheim is simpler than some of its siblings, but it’s still a fascinating car

It is easy to fall into the trap of judging this Benz harshly, because it feels so much more modern and capable than its contemporary rivals. It still doesn’t quite go like it looks, though.

Mercedes’ proud history is hardly littered with examples of ‘passing off ’, but this car, the 190SL and the R107 series show that the Stuttgart giant is not averse to dabbling in it once in a generation.

As a result, you can well imagine who might have bought the Mannheim in period. And for whom.

It was the pre-war German equivalents of the mid-ranking UK professionals who thought a 280SL was the perfect alternative to the taboo mink to drape around their partners’ shoulders to mark their 10th wedding anniversaries in 1980.

You know the ones: the first on their street to buy a SodaStream – and the first to lose their savings in a timeshare scam.

The thing is, even with a barrowload of euros those original buyers couldn’t get near it now.

Like the superinflation that crippled Germany in the early 1930s, the value of this gorgeous forgotten curiosity has rocketed and today the Mercedes-Benz 370S Mannheim is worth a distinctly un-middle-class amount of money. Is it worth it? Yes.

Images: James Mann

This was first in our August 2005 magazine; all information was correct at the date of original publication

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