The early 90s saw a change from the super wild to a more serious kind of tuning. Super widebodies that Gemballa and Koenig-Specials had created in the mid-80s got a bit out of fashion. A more factory-minded approach was wanted, not so much the cocaine-fueled excess from the eighties....
Inspiration
Now Dutch tuner Willy Mosselman, who had already made many Turbo- and Supercharger conversions on Mercedes-Benz cars in the 80s and early 90s (including work done for Brabus) came up with a cool idea to create something that looked factory-spec, yet not so tame to go unnoticed.... The story goes that Willy Mosselman had a request from his importers in Asia to come up with a unique Mosselman style bodykit and look: until then many Mosselman-turbo'ed Benzes including C124s and R129s were fitted with bodykits from the likes of AMG, Brabus and Lorinser (or non at all for that matter), and this because Mosselman had no body-conversions in their own catalog. Inspired by a Mercedes magazine advertisement that showed three silver-colored street-Mercedes parked next to a Group-C Sauber-Mercedes, he asked his designer to come up with a design that drew inspiration from the Group-C car and convert that to an SL (R129) and a CE (C124).
The 300CR and 300SLR
And thus Mosselman created two cars: the Mosselman 300CR and 300SLR. The first of the two was based on the Mercedes-Benz C124 300CE Coupe and the latter on the R129 300SL roadster. Hence the name, the cars had racing as a theme. And what better than to present both cars in a livery that would be heavily inspired by the Sauber-Mercedes Group-C racecars who won the 1989 Le Mans 24 hours race and were almost unbeatable in the Group-C championship.
The outer appearance of the 300CR (C124) was changed with mainly details based on the Sauber-Mercedes C11, that ran in the 1990 and 1991 World Sportscar Championship. The Mosselmans borrowed the small racing mirrors (in dayglow orange and yellow), the silver stickering on the windows, fake inlets in front of the rear wheel arches (inspired by the actual NACA-ducts on the C11) and obviously the silver paintjob.
More functional outer changes were the widened 500E front fenders and widened rear fenders, 500E front bumper with carbon lip, a bonnet with two louvers to relief engine heat, 18" custom Mosselman alloy wheels and a rear spoiler in carbon as well.
Engine-wise the choices weren't all that standard; Mosselman Turbo Systems being a tuner with the prime focus on forced induction engines, the interesting thing was he didn't choose the top-op-the-line 5litre V8 engine from the 500E or 500SL but instead they used the much lighter 3litre straight-six M103 engines of the 300SL and 300CE and installed a low-pressure twin-turbo system on that, using Garret T25 Turbos, powering the 6-cylinder engines from a standard 180 to a whopping 340 turboboosted horsepower... Compared to AMG's 300CE V8 Hammer with 360 horsepower that wasn't bad at all. Because of the much lighter engine in the front it gave a completely different car to drive, which was in no small way emphasised by the 5-speed manual transmission.
The interior of the Silver Arrow 300CR was far from standard; Recaro A8 racing bucket seats with custom buffalo leather upholstery, carbon trim instead of the usual wood, alloy shiftknob, custom Momo steering wheel and a custom display showing boost-pressure and turbo temperature.
Prices of the Mosselman conversions were 78.000DM on top of the baseprice of a 300CE, which in the early 1990s was about the same... 78.000DM. So the conversion doubled the price of the car... was it worth it? The owners can tell...
A life in Japan
And some, if not all those owners must have been Japanese. It seems the limited number of Silver Arrows built by Mosselman Turbo Systems were mostly built for the Asian market and at least three SIlver Arrow cars, one 300SLR (R129) and two 300CR (C124) made their way to Japan. These were sold through Japanese dealer/tuner DENAG (Deutsche Nisso Artmobile GmbH) who seemed to have at least the two C124 based 300CRs in their inventory for a very long time, which makes me wonder if the cars were hard to sell in a market that seemed to have demanded these creations in the first place. One of the two Mosselman 300CR was at one point converted with a new nose, using the W124 to W210 "Elite Line" conversion by Belgian "facelift-specialist" VH Exclusive Car Design. The modification included a new bonnet and front corner panels that could house the double round headlights of the W210 and the conversion featured a front bumper of the R129 SL.
The Mosselman 300CR showing it's racy looks (Photo: Autovisie)
The Silver Arrow brothers by Mosselman Turbo Systems; left the R129 based 300SLR and on the right the C124 based 300CR. Note that the 300CR lacks the stickers on the headlight units. (Photo: Autovisie)
The Mosselman 300CR with it's very racylook, 500E front bumper and front fenders grafted on the C124 body, carbon spoilers, custom six-spoke 18" wheels and an all-in-all Sauber-Mercedes Silver Arrow-look with color, silver stickers, silver'ed turn-signal lights and racing mirrors in dayglo orange. (photo: Ian Kuah)
The 300SLR and 300CR (Photo: Autovisie)
Both Mosselman cars at the AutoMechanika show in Germany, 1993. (Photo: Custom Mercedes-Benz)
The 300CR Silver Arrow in Japan in 1996, with DENAG stickers on the front fender and door. The car is parked with the Shuto Expressway in the background (Tokyo). (Photo: Genroq)
A nice rear view showing the wider fenders, carbon rear wing and the custom exhaust. (Photo: Genroq)
Carbon bits, racing steering wheel by Momo and the custom boost-display. (Photo: Genroq)
Recaro A8 racing seats upholstered with buffalo leather.... (Photo: Genroq)
The engine with Mosselman Turbo system in blue (Photo: Genroq)
At the DENAG showroom, 1993. The Mosselman 300CR standing on a podium in company with a Lotec 300CE Turbo (in the middle), Lotec Porsche 911 "Bullit 360" (on the right) and a DENAG Lorelei based on a Mercedes W124 (on the left). (Photo: Genroq)
Both the Mosselman 300CR and the Mosselman 280CR (W202 C-class based) at the DENAG showroom in Tokyo, mid 1990s.
In 1998 one of two 300CR Silver Arrows was updated to new-look spec... it got a W210 nosejob curtesy of VH Exclusive Car Tuning from Belgium, very likely carried out by DENAG. DENAG also offered other VH Exclusive Car Tuning products. The converted car was called "Mosselman 300CR Silver Arrow W210 Face". (Photo: Genroq)
VH Exclusive Car Tuning's Elite Line conversion consisted of a full front-end treatment for the C124 to make it look like a W210 Coupe, basically making it a CLK-ish car. The kit consisted of front wings, bonnet and a R129 SL look front bumper.
A brakedown of the VH Elite-Line modification.
The VH'ed Mosselman 300CR in front of the DENAG shop.
Both 300CRs standing next to each other in DENAG's showroom; the unmodified original and the W210-nosed second car. Interesting is that the unmodified (left) Mosselman 300CR appears to have gotten a new bonnet, which lacks the two louvres which can clearly be seen on the right-side car. (Photo: Genroq)
Text: copyright Bram Corts
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