Herpa MB 230 SL

POOLSIDE RAILS

Where Paper Crafting and Model Railroading Collide

Herpa Mercedes Benz 230 SL in HO Scale

HO Scale Vehicles

Granted, German manufacturer Herpa Miniaturmodelle GmbH’s prices are not low –prices range from about a $1 for an HO scale trailer dolly up to way past $450 for the Catwalk Yacht set – but you never need to wonder about the quality of their work.

Our Magic Series Mercedes Benz 230 SL two-set came in a clear plastic box, the two cars nicely posed one over the other within a clear plastic insert. The black cardboard surround inside advised us not to let kids under three suck on the cars as they could be deadly in German, English, and French. A UPC label on the bottom of the insert identified the cars as MB 230 SL (’65) – presumably the model vehicle’s model year.

We received two jaunty little convertibles, one in white and the other in maroon. Silver paint picks out the details very nicely and does a fair job of simulating chrome from a distance. Sadly, the columnar headlights are also painted silver. Although these were clear on the prototype and therefore reasonably okay to depict with silver paint, the large silver oblong on either side of the petitely painted grille looks simply cheap. On the other hand, the windshield frame is equally painted and looks very nice.

Our cars feature scale-looking MB logos on the trunk lid and hood, rendered in a pale white on the maroon car and in silver on the white one. In fact, the painting treatment on the rear end of each car is quite beautiful, despite the absence of a license plate.

The interior is simply molded in a flat black and includes the tonneau cover for the top. The silver trim on the tonneau surround is a bit thick – scaled up it would be as wide as your hand where it should be a finger’s width – but it doesn’t detract from the vehicle’s appearance. Although the steering wheel is well modeled, the dashboard is absolutely blank – not a shred of engraving to be found.

The wheels present an interesting challenge – the real 230 has a color disk in the center of the wheel cover that matches the body. The wheel covers on this car are extremely well painted, but only in silver – no color disk. As the plastic bodies are molded in the appropriate paint color, it’s understandable that Herpa would have trouble matching up wheel sets and paint. The end result is that the wheels look fine on the white car but look cheap on the maroon one. Go figure.

The molded plastic bodies have a reasonable luster, given that they are just plastic. The luster actually looks realistic once the vehicle is placed on a model roadway.

That actually is the point about these cars. We paid $4 each for them (two for $8), which is about twice what you’ll pay for the Lifelike vehicles, but you get ten times the detail. The Lifelike cars come without any interior, are crudely painted and are quite generic as to what vehicle they are actually modeling.

These 230 SLs from Herpa are nicely detailed models of handsome cars. At four bucks a pop they are worth the price! Check out our Resources Page for a link to Herpa.

Obtaining an adequate number of adequate looking scale vehicles to make a model railroad layout look realistic without breaking the bank is one of the biggest challenges model railroaders face. While there are several brands of small-scale vehicles available, those that come with the lowest price also feature the least detail.

Herpa’s Magic Series strikes a pleasing balance in this tug of war between fine scale and reasonable price. Each model number in their series offers you two HO Scale vehicles for the price of one – you can double the size of your parking lot-fillers for half of the cost.