Attack of the Clones, Pt. 9

This post covers a multitude of cars: those American cars made in the late '70s through to the late '80s who all lamely tried to copy Mercedes-Benz. Either in pieces or in whole front and rear sections.

I'll start off with the top couple pictures, which are obviously Mercedes cars. The first is the W124 S-Classe (the first) born in 1979. It started the trend of Mercedes' look through the next 2 decades (until 1995 when the 4 eyed E-Classe debuted). Basically, the look was straight forward - a basic 3 block shape, with large rectangular headlights and wraparound turn signals. And of course the big M-B grille. Sadly due to different headlight regulations, most Mercedes of that era came not with the large, flush headlights but with an uglier recessed, split affair. I couldn't find a pic of the S-Classe with them, so I attached a pic of the similar looking 190E of 1984.

Ironically, American car makers choose to copy the bastardized American versions of M-Bs. Although it was most likely because it was cheaper this way.

First of the clones that I can remember is the 1978 Ford Fairmont. It's basically a relatively nice looking car, but the M-B cues are obvious. From the grille pattern to the way the turn signals are placed between the grille and the headlights, it reeks of M-B. Ford ended up making scores of M-B ripoffs throughout their lineup. The 1978 Granada has a M-B grille, but it's vertically staked headlights are different. However, the actually ADVERTISED the car opposite a Mercedes so you could see the similarities. Next, there's a pic of the 1984 Mercury Cougar, with an obvious M-B grille. Strangely, both Mercury and Ford copied the german maker. You think they would keep to one brand.

Worse off though was the 1980 Chrysler K-Cars, which I think are truely fugly. Not only did the spread like cancer to the backbone of every Chrysler product, they're also the most blatant of the M-B ripoffs. Not only that, the car just looks awjward anyway. The 4 doors had a bizarre cutoff rear window that not only limited vision, but extremely limited the amount you could physically roll down the window.