A Hawke’s Bay newspaper commented some time ago that if anyone in New Zealand had earned the right to be called Mr Mercedes it was Ian Longley. Gordon meets with Ian and checks out some of the cars in his collection.

To confirm his status, Ian Longley has been the New Zealand Mercedes-Benz Club’s patron for some years and has been granted life membership of the club. These honours have been well and truly earned through a lifetime of dedication to the Mercedes-Benz marque, and over 30 years’ involvement in the Mercedes-Benz Club.

As a teenager, Ian listened to the stories told by his returned servicemen brothers-in-law, one of whom talked about the Mercedes-Benz vehicles prized as war booty by the Allied troops because they were so superior to their Bedfords. Those war tales may have influenced Ian’s choice of car, although it was a near thing. The rewards of hard work as a farmer and agricultural contractor meant he was able to go shopping for a Rolls-Royce at a relatively young age, but events shifted his focus from the winged lady to the three-pointed star.

He travelled with his father to Waverley in the farm Land Rover to buy stud sheep. On the way home, the Rover came to a halt with radiator problems. The nearest Land Rover agent was Manawatu Motors, in Palmerston North, which towed the vehicle to its workshop. As luck would have it, it held a new radiator in stock.

As the Longleys waited for the radiator to be fitted they watched a salesman manoeuvring a shiny Mercedes 220b into the showroom. Exhibiting a seller’s nose for a buyer, the salesman tried to talk Ian’s father into buying the car, without apparent interest from Mr Longley senior. Early the next morning, Ian rang his father and asked what his plans were for the day?

“Well, I suppose we’re going to Palmerston North,” was the reply.

Back at Manawatu Motors, the salesman started the hard sell, taking Ian’s father into his office while Ian familiarised himself with the foreign car. Finally the big question — well, what do you think?
Mr Longley replied, “Don’t ask me, the buyer’s out there!”

After recovering from that news, the salesman began to explain the finance terms to Ian, to purchase the Mercedes less the value of Ian’s year-old Holden station wagon. Ian asked what the total figure would be, and simply wrote the cheque. The salesman’s confusion is understandable — it was probably his first encounter with a youngster paying cash for such an expensive car.

Ian didn’t even bother to test drive the Mercedes. Most of his driving was on the gravel roads that were much more common then. Having replaced two sets of shock absorbers in the Holden in 30,577km because of stone damage to the damper shafts, he simply asked that the Mercedes be put on the workshop hoist. This allowed him to see its damper shafts and other critical items were protected. To his delight, the car handled the gravel roads without problems, and Ian took that 220b’s odometer from less than 4800 to 151,274km.

Star collection

In total, 46 Mercedes vehicles have passed through Ian’s hands, including the first 230SL sold in New Zealand. At the other end of the spectrum were two Mercedes-Benz tractors and a 1951 170VA utility.
An early club gathering was deemed worthy of coverage in the local Daily Telegraph and Herald Tribune, which reported that the utility was the only one in the country and had, in 1972, covered 400,000 miles (643,720km). In fact it was 685,560km.

It may be news to most people unfamiliar with the brand that Daimler-Benz used to make tractors. Ian owned two such beasts in the late ’70s/early ’80s. Cable-Price Corporation, the New Zealand distributor at the time, had imported six large MB tractors and shipped them to its Christchurch branch in the expectation that the Plains cropping farmers would be queuing to buy them. It didn’t happen. After some time, during which Cable-Price no doubt became increasingly nervous, Ian heard about the tractors, and the company happily flew him to Christchurch to inspect them. He agreed to buy one, with the proviso that he would be given a special deal if he could sell three more, which he did, in the North Island.

Ian later bought a smaller model based on the Unimog’s mechanical components, including its step-down planetary gear system at each wheel. This was a proper tractor rather than a short Unimog, but Ian also used a Unimog in his contracting business, being possibly the first person to fit one with a fertiliser spreading unit. He also modified it to take a hay mower on the front.

Loyalty

Although Ian’s marque loyalty has never wavered, the range of Mercedes-Benz cars he has owned over the years has been extremely varied. An early ’50s 300b, the 230SL, a late ’60s W108 280SE, a W123 300D turbo diesel, a W123 280CE coupe, three mid-’80s W126 280SEs — the list goes on and on.

Needless to say, he is an authority on Mercedes, so his comments on the various models, good and bad, are enlightening. Being a true enthusiast he prefers to dwell on the good.

Ian is also the factory-appointed keeper of Mercedes-Benz long distance records for New Zealand. Lapel pins and grille badges are awarded to drivers and vehicles respectively that have travelled various distances, such as 200,000km, 250,000km, 500,000 km, 1,000,000km and so on.

Normally, Ian makes the presentations, but he couldn’t really present an award to himself, so a German factory representative presented his 1,000,000km pin in 1988. He expects to receive his 2,000,000km pin shortly even though he clocked up his two millionth kilometre some time ago. His total has been boosted by the factory’s formula for converting tractor hours to kilometres.

Factory tour

In 1986 Ian organised a trip to the factory’s centennial celebrations for 16 Kiwis and several Australians, all of whom were generously hosted in Los Angeles by the Mercedes-Benz Club America during a stopover on the way to Stuttgart.

Unusually, their tour of the factory was a walk through rather than an elevated train ride. At one point they were told they could not inspect the area where the 100th anniversary models were being assembled. Later they learned that these were special versions of the 190E, identifiable by their ‘Komplett II’ boot badges and extra equipment. About six years ago Ian found one for sale. The fact it was on the assembly line at the time of his visit was enough reason to buy it.

The factory tour included laps of the test track with Mercedes-Benz test drivers at the wheels of a variety of cars. Ian describes his laps, in the front seat of a 6.9-litre 450SEL being used to the full, as one of his most frightening experiences.

Changing collection

Keeping up to date with Ian’s collection is difficult. The fleet changes regularly, so details and photos are soon out of date. When I first visited him he owned nine Mercedes, including a 2004 A-class, a four-wheel-drive G-Wagen and a 1999 CLK230, among others. Several months later the A-class and G-Wagen had been replaced by a 2005 A200. Since my last visit, a new B200 Turbo has replaced the A200 and CLK230.

Ian bought his 1953 220 in 1995 as an unfinished restoration project. Unhappily, it was unfinished because the owner had died. Originally imported into New Zealand for the German Embassy, its history from then to the time of Ian’s purchase is not known.

Ian had the restoration completed with great difficulty and expense due to the need to manufacture damaged or missing parts. Because the chassis was carried over from the old 170, there was very limited clearance between the chassis rails and drivetrain in the six-cylinder cars, dictating the use of a unique starter motor and extra-long rear gearbox casing.

As with any old and rare car, these unique parts created a major headache for the restorer. The broken gearbox spigot shaft could not be replaced with a later type, so appropriately named We-Can Engineering of Hastings built a new one. It took Ian several years to find the correct starter motor.

The platers were reluctant to re-chrome the radiator grille, because its brass shell was so thin they doubted it could take plating without distortion. Luckily, their doubts were unfounded. The strips on the tops of the front mudguards were reproduced locally — cast in brass and then chromed. The total cost of the restoration may have been daunting, but there is no doubt that the end result was worth it.

Finny

Ian’s ’64 Finny was acquired in more unusual circumstances. Many years ago, the Hawkes Bay County Council realised it didn’t have an appropriate vehicle to transport the Governor-General during his impending visit. A councillor solved the problem by making a quick trip to Cable Price Corporation in Wellington to buy this Mercedes-Benz 220Sb. Clearly he was a civic leader prepared to make a sacrifice for his constituents!

Many years later, Ian acquired the car as part of a property deal — he agreed to buy the former councillor’s orchard provided the car remained. After some misgivings about parting with it, the man’s widow agreed. Out of respect for the previous owner, Ian promptly had it tidied up and repainted by Greenmeadows Panelbeaters in Napier.

In contrast, the later car’s styling cues leave no doubt it’s a child of the late ’50s/ early ’60s. The tail fins, heavy bright-work, jukebox instrument panel and vertical strip speedometer that changes colour with speed, could only originate from that era.

Even though it carries a few extra kilograms, the additional 33kW (44bhp) make the 220Sb significantly quicker than its ancestor. The Finny is not disgraced by today’s acceleration rates, and it could still exceed the open road speed limit by a significant margin if such behaviour was allowed.

Finnies are relatively common in New Zealand, and there are still quite a few nice examples in regular use. This fact and their controversial styling might be why they represent good buying on the classic car market, although asking prices seem to be slowly climbing. On the other hand, the old 220 is too rare to be known in this country, or to use on a daily basis, and this model is highly valued overseas. Ian has decided the time has come to sell the car, so if you would like to give this very special old car a home, call him on 06 878 6779 and have a chat.

Dedication

There are two surviving founders of the New Zealand Mercedes-Benz Club. During the last 40 years of dedication to Mercedes-Benz and the club, Ian has seen his shared brainchild grow from its birth in 1972, in the small town of Waipukurau, to encompass the length and breadth of the country, and more recently the internet, at www.mbcnz.com.

As patron of the New Zealand club, his duty is to keep a watching brief over the club’s affairs. The original purpose of the club was to provide a social and informative function for Mercedes-minded people, and Ian’s belief in those aims hasn’t waned over the years.

He truly is New Zealand’s Mr Mercedes.

Words: Gordon Campbell Photos: Sean Craig

Be Sociable, Share!

•