Classic Mercedes-Benz W114 Hides Techy Secret
Hiding a new unit in your vintage Mercedes’ center console keeps your dash looking classic.
One of the biggest frustrations we’ve come across at MBWorld is noise complaints. No, not rattles from inside the car, but rather, what to do about upgrading an audio unit. For the newer cars, the problem comes from replacing COMAND units that are only slightly out of date and properly pairing up fiber optic wires. Older cars suffer a much different issue, and that comes down to looks.
Plumbing wires for door and rear shelf speakers is relatively easy, but trying to match up the look of a new radio with a classic interior can be incredibly frustrating. Jeff Glucker from Hooniverse has found a rather interesting solution to this problem, mostly because the original radio is left completely in place.
Glucker’s 1974 Mercedes 280 was bought with the intent to spruce up, with the main focus being on interior trim and audio. Glucker elaborates on the situation, saying, “I did not cut the Becker Europa out of the dash because these radios are hard to find in working condition. This one works fine, it’s just not connected any more.”
The solution was to mount a Clarion unit in the Mercedes’ center console. Since it was a marine unit, it had a more compact size than a typical single or double DIN unit and fit well behind the shifter. No sacrifices in features or audio quality were made either. “It’s loud and clear, which is exactly what I wanted,” Glucker says. It should be loud and clear, too, running a setup of a mid range and tweeter in each front door, 6×9 rear shelf speakers, and a fully contained subwoofer in the truck.
Best of all, it matches with modern tech, allowing Bluetooth connectivity to stream right from your phone. It even has a rear backup camera feature as well, and we bet you didn’t notice that in the picture of the car above. Center console mounted marine head units sound like quite an excellent solution, if you ask us.
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