Meet the Gorgeous 1962 Mercedes-Benz 220S Fintail and Owner Belinda Clontz

Posted On Mar 14, 2020 By admin With Comments Off

On the eve of designating off to 2019 Monterey Car Week in her 1962 Mercedes-Benz 220 S Fintail, Belinda Clontz’s home flooded on all three floors. But that was just the beginning of the roadblocks.

As she prepared her Fintail for a week of revelries at Pebble Beach, Clontz discovered it had a leak from a divide differential. In full-swing panic mode, she backed out of the garage to take the 220 S to its mechanic and disintegrated into the side of a retaining wall. The happen called for an emergency re-chrome of the rear bumper that had to be completed within 24 hours.

On her behavior to Monterey, Clontz stumbled a dense wave of gloom as she drove through a deteriorating road under building. And just when she thoughts life could not get any worse, a monstrous piece of wood pilot off the back of a truck, only missing her vehicle by a few cases inches. When she lastly arrived in Monterey, the garage to the house she rented was not available on the first night. Her car had to be parked outside under the swampy ocean mist, justification her to not get much sleep all night.

Clontz describes the experience as “going through hell” to make sure her Fintail got onto the lawn at Legend of the Autobahn, where she was the only woman showing off a vehicle; interestingly, it also happened to be the 60 th anniversary of the Mercedes-Benz Fintail. Clontz penetrated her 220 S into the Class 2 and 4 lists and triumphed first place, which determined going through hell worth it. We sat down with her to talk about her fervour for Mercedes, and more.

Belinda Clontz Bertha Benz

Your devotion to Mercedes-Benz is quite remarkable. What motivated your loyalty to the marque?

Belinda Clontz: I have a passion for anything that has to do with women behind the rotate, and Mercedes-Benz is the embodiment of that. When Karl Benz developed the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, his wife Bertha Benz took it out on the road to introduce it to the world. With her two children on board, Bertha drove the Motorwagen for 65 miles to her parent’s house and constructed record as the first person to drive a car for a long-distance. Imagine seeing a woman driving this thing on rotates through the countryside by herself–and with boys in tow.

I admire any woman who is willing to do something that no one else has done. Bertha Benz was ahead of her period and I consider her a significant pioneer in the creation of the automobile.

How did you first become interested in autoes?

BC: I grew up in a rural part of North Carolina and we didn’t have a lot of entertainment, so my dad cleared off some territory and constructed a go-kart track for me and their neighbours. I was the only girl race all of the boys in the neighborhood. My uncle Jerry, who lived across the street, use at a dealership and came home with a different automobile every day. He’d ever be driving the most recent gondolas and I remember being so excited to see them. From an early age, I knew that driving brand-new automobiles means that you had to work hard and that one day I’d be driving one, too.

Why did you are buying your Mercedes-Benz Fintail, and what condition was it in?

BC: I bought the Mercedes-Benz 220 S for my 40 th birthday kind of as my midlife crisis car. Times before I acquired this 220 S, I had a very scary accident in a two-seater vintage car. After that gondola accident, I demanded a vintage car that I would feel protected against while driving through Los Angeles traffic. When I made delivery of the Fintail, it was in semi-restored shape, and in fairly good overall situation. Though it was not in the immaculate condition it is now, I could tell that it was well taken care of and adored by the previous owner.

D.R. Army features

Did the seller include anything cool with the Fintail?

BC: The original proprietor was so thorough about the maintenance and record impeding that he saved about a two-foot stack of documents and receipts, which were included with the car.

Who was the original proprietor?

BC: My Mercedes-Benz Fintail was previously owned by a gentleman that served in the U.S. Army. Before he was secreted from assistance, he pre-ordered this 220 S while he was stationed in Europe. I have the letters of correspondence and carrying documents issued for when the car was being built in the Stuttgart factory, to its delivery at the Port of Long Beach. This auto has spent its entire life in Southern California, and I am the second owner.

Tell us about the engine and dissemination.

BC: The device was completely rebuilt, and it has a four-speed manual transmission with a shifter they announce “four on the tree.” I can tell you that no valet in Los Angeles can park the car because they don’t know how to operate this style of shifter. And let’s face it, most people here don’t drive manuals. As of right now, the engine has 266,000 miles and is going strong.

That stunning all-red interior though…

BC: The interior was done by the previous proprietor, but I’ve done some improves. I bought an entire automobile only to pull out the factory A/ C and have it installed in my auto. I added point chasten headrests to the seats, which only came to see you the limousines and took me more than three years to find.

The front grille plays a number of interesting badges. Is there one that is more special than the others?

Jerry Legend

BC: There is a 250,000 -kilometer badge that was awarded by Mercedes for high mileage. They apportioned these medals to gondolas that have the miles documented. I had the paperwork and obtained the stamp in honor of the original proprietor. It’s my connection to him, and being that he placed the miles on the car, I think he’d be proud to see the high-mileage badge on the Fintail’s grille.

Your Fintail has a determined of fog glowings that are rare. How did you find a duet in such nice necessity?

BC: Those haze daylights attained me. If you introduced it out in the universe that you are looking for something, things have a way of encounter you. I acquired this set of Marchal 660 Fantastic fog light-coloreds from a extremely dear friend who only distributes in Marchal lights, and they are period correct for rallying a gondola. The set on my Fintail is rare in terms of rather than simply being gloom ignites that excerpt on, these are installed with dishes that be part of the car’s structure.

Have you given your 220 S a nickname?

BC: His name is “Finny the Fintail, ” and everyone knows him by “Finny.” People talk to me like Finny is my child and it humors me.

The whitewalls on Finny are super clean. Is your Fintail a garage queen?

BC: It certainly isn’t a daily move; however, it does get some sunlight once or twice a week. If I am feeling genuinely enthusiastic, I drive it five days a week and will go anywhere in Los Angeles.

mechanic Mercedes-Benz 220S Fintail

Owning any classic car asks serious devotion. What does it to be undertaken to own a vintage Mercedes?

BC: It takes a adaptable sense of humor, lots of patience, and feel the title person who works on the particular model you own. Having connections to people who can help you is an integral component of possession and upkeep of a vintage car.

When I was getting ready for Monterey Car Week, I faced one of my worst dreads and stood underneath the car while it was on a promote. I was standing there for over an hour looking for the disclose and it turned out to be the differential. That’s the kind of patience it takes to own an old-fashioned car.

Do you ever get your hands dirty and work on your gondola?

BC: The last-place age I did, I made the engine bay apart and smoothed everything by hand.

You’ve recently acquired an manor of 20 vintage Mercedes vehicles and a depot full of vehicle sides …

BC: This particular estate kind of fell into my sip and I couldn’t turn it down. It’s given me an opportunity to do research and learn more about vintage Mercedes cars. I’ve been satisfying new people through the sales from this manor and it’s been a really fun experience.

What does the Mercedes-Benz Fintail mean to you?

queen Southern California

BC: When the Fintail first are entered into my hold, it made so much to me because I known that I bought a auto that was adored and well taken care of. But then I did some study on its own history of Fintails and discovered Ewy Rosqvist and Ursula Wirth. They won the 1962 Grand Prix of Argentina in a Mercedes-Benz 220 SE Fintail and were the first dames to ever win that grueling race.

I too learned that Mercedes-Benz modeled all of its safety engineering after the W111 chassis, which the Fintail was is built around. The Fintail means more to me now than when I first bought it. That auto is priceless to me.

Who is, to you, the most inspiring figure in the history of Mercedes-Benz?

BC: My love for Mercedes-Benz stanches from the fact that it was helped to be founded by the status of women. Bertha Benz belief so much in her husband’s Motorwagen that she expended her endowment fund in his business. Although she was not allowed to be worded as one of the founders at the time, Bertha also contributed to the design and engineering of the Motorwagen. She took the Motorwagen on its firstly exam drive and cured apply Karl Benz on the planned as the inventor of the first vehicle. Her role in its own history of Mercedes-Benz is influential and inspires me every time I get out on the road with my Fintail.