We may need a little directed history to keep the ‘Pullman’ names straight; they begin to take on the sort of meaning of minor revisions made on major reorganizations in the Gilded Age robber-baron era. The “Pullman” of specific interest here, between the late Forties and early Sixties, is the entity operating sleepers as sold to the railroads; see the language used here, particularly in 2(1):
[quote]
That the said contract of sale be and the same is hereby approved upon the conditions herein specified.
That the said conditions of approval are the following:
(1) That no person shall be at the same time a director of Pullman, Inc. and of any vendee railroad, or of Pullman Standard and of any such railroad, or of Pullman, Inc. and of Pullman Company, or of Pullman Company and of Pullman Standard;
(2) That in the event that Pullman Company desires to acquire new sleeping cars the purchase shall be made only after competitive bidding in the same manner as provided by the regulations ordered by the Interstate Commerce Commission on October 6, 1919, to be effective for competitive bidding, as those regulations have been or may hereafter be amended from time to time by the Interstate Commerce Commission;
(3) That in the event that any vendee railroad desires to acquire new sleeping cars the purchase shall be made only after like competitive bidding;
Adding to the confusion, were not the specific deluxe British trains, like the British Southern Railway’s Brighton Bell and Bournmouth Bell also called Pullmans? No sleeping cars, but at-table seating with Tea and Scones complementary. The Brighton Bell was EMU! Later, there were diesel fairly fast Blue Pullmans. Again, no sleeping cars.
Of course it started out being the British version of the American company. It rather quickly diverged (as did other “American-started” British companies) and wound up combined with the CIWL under bankers’ control – see for example this abbreviated account:
The general subject has been covered in some other references, usually without too much concern for relative lack of penetration of the American Pullman Company in other parts of the world as a manufacturing/operating agency of the type it had become in “US-America” up to the late '30s.
Just for fun, an image from the above quote source:
Here’s a Pullman that had rubber tires. Built for kings, despots and popes. I had a chance to buy one for $5,000.00 a few years ago. Glad I didn’t, but if I lost my home, I could have lived in it.
Why were you glad you didn’t? Did you think you’d pay more to fix the hydraulics than it would be worth? (For the ‘unerwachsene’ this car has hydraulic power windows and central door locks, among many other things)
The only ‘unfortunate’ thing about these is that they have a six-liter motor, which has a frightening thirst for premium gas. (Worse yet was the King Kong of the classic ‘Mercedeses’, the 450SEL 6.9, which is a trip to drive but you pay dearly for the privilege and even more dearly to keep it running – to my knowledge these didn’t have a factory ‘stretch’ version as they were for owner-drivers…)
When I was little and much more naive, finding out about these ‘Pullmans’ instantly made me think they had sleeping arrangements for the passengers – after all, another German company’s Westphalias had sleeping at a far lower price! – on the fold-down bunk principle in Pullman cars. Ah, to be young and idealistic!
Well, I had a close look at that car. The suspension is pneumatic; each corner of the car has a leveling valve with an air bag that takes the place of conventional springs. To replace all of them is at least $2,000.00 for each corner. All of the other functions such as the windows and door locks are hydraulic and one window switch is more than 2 grand. The suspension of the recently retired CLRVs is almost identical to what is in these cars (but larger, of course) and being designed in Switzerland leads me to believe someone on the staff had a 600 or a 300 SEL.
Lookng under that car, I saw how it was kept level by threaded rod coming from up above down to heavy metal plates attached to the lower control arms so to keep the car up. Rather scary, I thought.
A friend has a 1968 300SEL 6.3 which has the same engine as a 600. I drove it once. It has a tachometer and at 60 mph, the engine might be doing 1,200 rpm so it’s just loafing aloing. It was probably the most powerful car I’ve ever driven. There is a shop in New York that specialises in these cars and when my friend had it totally worked over by them, the bill was over $30,000.00. I have appraised several 6.9s for insurance purposes but have never driven one. Don’t want one of those either but they do have Citroen-derived hydro-pneumatic suspension. If you are familair with the Citroen DS, you will see the similarites in the suspension with the hydraulic pump, accumulator and suspension spheres.
So yes, I dodged a serious bullet, not buying that car.
A friend of mine, for a period of time, worked for a descendent of the Johonson & Johnson fortune. They owned a Rolls-Royce, specific model of which I don’t know, to be serviced the car had to be taken 300 miles to the nearest dealer. The car would be trailered to the dealer and back as driving it would have put too many miles on the odometer. Since the servicing would take an appreciable amount of time, the task of taking the car for service also included the costs of food and lodging for the person trailering the car to and fro, not to mention the normal payroll of that person.
Regarding the MB ‘Grosser Pullman’ - the German’s have never seen a design that they didn’t feel they could improve by making it more involved and complex.
As I said previously, If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.
