The Mercedes Pagoda SL

MERCEDES - BENZ

The Mercedes Pagoda SL

230, 250, 280SL W113

1963 – 1971

By Bernd S. Koehling

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2018 Bernd S. Koehling

All rights reserved

CONTENT

Foreword

The Cars

230/250/280SL W113 (1963 – 1971)

Developing the W113 SL

The technical aspects

The 230SL

The 250SL

The 280SL

The racing history

The coachbuilders Pininfarina, Frua and Schaller

In-house conversions

The sales performance

Experiencing the 230SL

The Pagoda SL in advertisement

A unique 280SL

Technical chapters

The chassis number explained

The data card explained

What is my car worth

The W113 versus the Dow Jones Index

W113 buyer’s guide

Paint options

Interior colors

Technical specifications

Power and torque curves

Production history of each model

Head of design Karl Wilfert

About the author

Other books by the author

Free book offer

FOREWORD

First, I would like to thank you for having purchased this book and I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It is part of an e-book series that covers all cars produced by Daimler-Benz during the 1950s and 1960s.

Had it been only for the 300SL W198, most probably there would not be a SL available today. But luckily upon the insistence of Austrian born New York entrepreneur and car importer Max Hoffman, the 300 SL had a smaller brother and that 190SL sold in sufficiently large numbers that management was encouraged to think about a successor. Nobody in Daimler-Benz had been really happy with the engine of the 190SL, so this time it had to be right. More powerful and roomier than the 190SL, but not as fast and expensive as the 300SL was the instruction to the Uhlenhaut, Wilfert, Müller team.

Although the W113 SL is in many books about Mercedes-Benz credited to Paul Bracq, it was designed to a large extent by the team under Friedrich Geiger, who was director in the design department headed by Karl Wilfert. Paul Bracq (and Bruno Sacco), worked under Friedrich Geiger as head of Advanced Design. Bracq’s pagoda roof was based on one of many patents of Béla Barényi, who was within Daimler-Benz in charge of passenger safety design. It was praised for its rigidity and safety, although, as later tests revealed, not necessarily for its aerodynamics. And exactly this controversial roof design created quite some stir, when the car was launched in 1963.

Today, over fifty years after its launch, any debate about the roof is of course forgotten and the Pagoda SL is lauded for its timeless elegance and beauty. It is a superb all-time classic that actually feels modern. It can be used to cross continents in style and comfort without causing major concerns about its reliability or handling. While its predecessor, the 190SL, is rarer, it is the more powerful pagoda model that everybody seems to want. And one of the reasons is the unique look of the roof. Can you ask for more as a designer?

This updated e-book includes value changes of all three models from March 2010 to March 2018. Chassis number and data card are explained, a buyer’s guide included and a very unique SL, outfitted in 2012, is shown. The technical specifications have been extended and more color photos of the undercarriage added. A separate chapter deals with Karl Wilfert, who was the head of the design department for almost twenty years. Cars like the 300SL Gullwing, Pagoda SL or R107 SL were all designed under his stewardship.

April 2018

Bernd S. Koehling

Developing the W113 SL

At the end of the 1950s, Mercedes customers never had it so good, when it came to open motoring in style. For the truly luxury inclined, a big and luxurious four-door cabriolet was available in form of the most expensive car, Daimler-Benz had to offer, the 300d Cabriolet. In 1959 the car found 23 customers, who were willing to pay DM37,000 (US$9,250) for the automatic version. If you thought that a luxury cabriolet should never have more than two doors, the 220SE cabriolet was the right choice for you and could be bought for DM23,400 ($5,850). In that year, around 270 customers made themselves very happy. For the fast and furious, the 300SL Roadster was the ultimate driving machine. 211 units were sold in 1959 at a price of DM34,000 ($8,500), hardtop included. If you liked the looks of the SL but preferred something more docile, the 190SL could be yours for DM17,650 ($4,410), again hardtop included. 3,949 buyers liked this concept in 1959.

In mid-1963, that world had changed completely. None of these cars existed anymore. All four cars have been great for the image, but except for the 190SL, none of them had made the company much money. The company had accepted that, because they were needed to bring back the image the company had enjoyed before WWII.

If there would be a new SL, and the 190SL was living proof that such a car could be sold in reasonable numbers, it had to be based on technology and parts from the sedans in order to make it profitable. If only the 300SL would have existed and the colorful Austrian-born US importer Max Hoffman would not have been able to convince management to launch a cheaper version soon afterwards, the SL concept would have died with that car.

In first meetings in 1958 about an SL successor, it became clear that the car, called 220SL, needed to have a six-cylinder engine. Already the 190SL was supposed to have a six-cylinder engine. Technicians around Nallinger, who was as member of the executive board responsible for passenger car development, were never really happy with the four-cylinder M 121 engine. And tests had advanced sufficiently enough to give a newly developed 2.2 L (134 cu in) engine the internal code M 127.

The executive board had decided in a meeting on April 12th 1957 to give the car a go as 220SL in 190SL clothes. In future, the small SL should be available with both engines. Unfortunately, time was against the project. The tooling needed to produce the new fuel-injected engine would not be ready in time. And to wait for the tools to arrive at a later date would have meant to withdraw precious resources from another more important project. That project was the launch of the all new 220b series in 1959. The 220SL had to be cancelled. It was decided to design a completely new car with that engine and launch it at a later date. After all, the 190SL was still selling quite well.

During this 1958 meeting, it was also agreed that the new SL should have a larger cabin and trunk. In order to keep development and manufacturing costs at a reasonable level, the engine had to be based on an existing six-cylinder, chassis and suspension had to come from the new W111 sedan and the car’s overall dimensions should not be much bigger than the ones of the 190SL.

Slight adjustments were allowed of course, but the concept was that a new SL had to be profitable for the company. The price should be attractive enough so that this car could be sold in sufficiently large quantities. In short, this time it had to be feasible for the bean counters too. These requirements showed that the new SL could not have been a successor of the 300SL. The board wanted a car that should function as a fast touring sports car, a task that the previous 190SL was not able to accomplish fully.

As everybody wanted the 220SL not to be a beefed-up 190SL, head of design Karl Wilfert, his long time colleague, friend and safety guru Béla Barényi, Paul Bracq and Bracq’s superior Friedrich Geiger knew they had some work to do. As instructed by Nallinger, they used the chassis and running gear of the 220b W111 series, but shortened and strengthened the chassis so that it fit the overall dimensions of the 190SL. The chassis of the W111 was already designed with the latest safety aspects in mind, so the famous Barényi invented crumple zones made the new sports car the safest two-seater in the world at the time of its launch.

The wheelbase of the SL was shortened from 2,750 mm (108.3 inches) to 2,400 mm