The greatest car of 1976...
07/10/2024
...was empirically determined to be this Mercedes-Benz 170 S. In April of the same year, the magazine auto motor und sport called on its readers to send in photos of their converted cars and then choose the most fascinating one. Among the entries were complete homebuilts, Americans in extravagant mother-of-pearl paintwork, speeding grannies, a VW Beetle with a Ford Capri V6, a BMW 02 with 600 hp, a "fire engine rocket car" - and even the blue Benz built in 1953, which owner Norbert Rohner had "Americanized" a little.
Slot mags, white-letter tires, side exhaust and cut-off mudguards followed the hot rod fashion of the seventies. And since such a muscular appearance with the standard 52 hp would have been somewhat embarrassing, Rohner also provided an adequate drive: instead of the 1.7-liter four-cylinder engine, the 250 hp V8 from a Ford Mustang was used under the hood, which can also be easily closed over the new 5.8-liter monster.
With almost a quarter of the votes , the AMS readers chose the Ameribenz from Austria as their favorite, and the Stuttgart-based publishing house gave the winner a new vehicle. Norbert Rohner didn't even have to change his style for this one. His main prize was a fully restored Citroën 15 CV from 1952 - the only question is how long he was allowed to keep his six-cylinder afterwards...
