Older cars with two-tone bodies

[Jukie]

W201s & W124s......many have two-tone bodywork, whereby the lower plastic mouldings are a different shade or colour, in matt.

Is there any significance in this? Does anyone know why this is/was?

 

[Niks]

Probably mercedes's way of being unique and different against others I guess

 

[KillerHERTZ]

It was the fashion at the time, much like American station wagons covered in wood - on the outside!

 

[Tim29]

Is it not a way of making the car look cleaner than it is. Reason being, usually it is the lower panels of the car that get dirty quicker, by making them darker it hides the dirt as you can't compare it with the rest of the body...

Tim

 

[G-Force]

+1 for the fashion idea

 

[coupe deville]

there was a c124 on here [ think it belonged to THE GFP - where's he gone ] where the plastic panels had been removed and i think it looked better, but i only saw photos of it

 

[219]

Pre facelift W201's didn't have the Sacco panels .

 

[BlackC55]

129's have them too.

 

[219]

Not to mention 126's .

Old Bruno did a lot of work !

 

[EDZ649]

129's have them too.

My 129 and 124 both have them but I also have gen1 AMG bodykits fitted to both cars which make the panels look much better IMHO

 

[KillerHERTZ]

And Maybach's remember:

Strange that they sold in so little numbers...

 

[grober]

The reason the panels, first introduced in the mass market models W201 [190] 1988 and the W124 [1989] were a contrasting colour was the difficulty of good true colour impregnation in the laminated polyurethane panels. Rather than going for a "poor match" Mercedes opted for a limited series of "contrast panels" instead. As the impregnation process improved more colour " pseudo-matches " became available and were seen in the later rebadged post 94 cars. Minor styling changes to the bonnet and grill introduced at the same time were designed to give a closer "family resemblance" to the newer C and S lines. By the time the better colour impregnation technology was available the "two-tone look " had become synonymous with the older models and was probably retained for that reason.

 

[Jukie]

So, given it's now 2010, is it relatively easy to have the body mouldings matched to the main body colour? What process is involved?

TIA, David.

 

[EDZ649]

Yes, any good bodyshop should be able to do it. I had some bumpers colour coded on an Astra a few years back, couldn't tell the difference between the old and new.