... does the Chrysler 300 remind you of another front end?
Funny you should mention that. I recently spied one of those monstrosities - I thought it about as handsome (NOT!) as an Edsel. Yes, the grille is vaguely reminiscent of the W116's, but only after the latter had been through some godawful uglification disaster.
... am I wrong in seeing the influence of the w116 body style in other auto manufacturers' designs? What do you think?
Whilst M-B have sometimes been style followers rather than leaders, once they've adopted (and, as usual, refined) a style, the lesser manufacturers do their level best (which is often pretty poor) to at least hint at it in their succeeding models - as though a mere body design element could make a non-Benz a better car.
There was an interesting complaint about three years ago here in Oz, where GM-H (our local GM operation, the "H" standing for "Holden") complained that the grille on the (then) current S-Class Benz mimicked that on the new Holden Statesman! Huh! As if M-B would try to mimic a Holden's design features in the hope of snaring a customer or three! What gross delusions of grandeur on the part of GM-H!
Whilst I admit that the Benz grille had, by that time, moved a tad too far from the traditional shape for my liking, it was still larger and more imposing than the supposedly similar Statesman grill. Guess which make changed the grille design on its next model? Not the Benz.
Briefly diverting to the topic of attractive design and American cars ...
There are very few post-WWII US cars I have found at all attractive; many of them were ugly enough to make a bag of onions cry. However, I did think the 1950s and early 1960s Studebakers from Raymond Loewy's pen were particularly attractive: sexy curves, long lines, nice balance.