Chassis 113042 10 012773
Motor 127981 16 010591
Aufbau 04030

In the Wiesenthal Collection since 1987
Delivered new to Germany
Matching Numbers

At the end of the 1950s, some in Stuttgart began grappling with a problem that seemed unsolvable. The task was to supersede the vehicle that had been the super star, a living legend, a car to beat all others: the 300 SL. And if that were not enough, a successor also needed to be found for its little brother, the 190 SL – all in one go.

Friedrich Geiger, Head of the Experimental Department and himself a self-taught expert in automobile design, brought two young sketch artists into his team. These were the Frenchman Paul Bracq and the Italian Bruno Sacco, and the daunting task was handed over to these two youngsters.

Motor racing had been a thing of the past for Mercedes since the Le Mans disaster in 1955. There were no longer any race cars that could be tamed and brought onto the streets. In addition, the world had changed. The era of low volume hand-made pieces had passed, prosperity was achievable, and the door to the New World, across the Atlantic, had been opened. The two discontinued models had enjoyed success there, and the new model was supposed to do so as well – only in greater numbers. That was the plan.

The new Fintail generation provided the technical basics. These cars’ substructure was simply reduced by 30 cm. The engine was bored out to 2.3 litres and souped up to 150 horsepower thanks to fuel injection technology. Aadd that to a chassis that was both sporty and comfortable and the all-round car was almost finished. Passenger safety was the tricky extra task, and there the master of crumple zones was ultimately brought on board, Bela Barenyi.

Paul Bracq led the charge, and after several attempts, the 230 SL was presented in its finished guise at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1963. It had clean lines, an unruffled finish and seemed timelessly elegant nonetheless – or possibly, as a result. The solid coupé roof, however, seemed to be a little irritating. It certainly did curve out in the opposite way from what people had got used to.

Some hacks wanted to see it as harking back to far-eastern temples, but in fact, it was down to its stiffness. Nevertheless, the SL has kept this nickname to the present day: Pagoda.

Even at the Geneva Show, any hint of nostalgia was snuffed out, its predecessors had been forgotten in the hype that grew around the 230 SL. Other vehicles might have been more powerful, quicker, more expensive, but the new SL hit the zeitgeist bang on. Any doubts as to the insolvability of the problem disappeared. Its success was assured from the very first moment, despite the hefty price tag of DM 22,000.

The 250 SL followed at the end of 1966. Four disc brakes, more cylinder capacity, more torque for the same power. The brakes would have done it, as the engine was rough and was tended to fail at full throttle runs. The solution came just a year later in the form of the 280 SL, the final level at which the all-rounder was produced.

Retrospectively, Bruno Sacco once said that the Pagoda was a step in the wrong direction, seeing it as being too close to the 190 rather than the 300 SL. Many would have been happy to take this misstep.

This 230 SL left the factory in September 1965 and was sold via Lueg’s Bochum franchise. The car was painted white and had a red interior in MB-Tex, paried with a black convertible top and a white hard top. It was then moved from this part of Germany to Vienna to join the Wiesenthal collection in 1987. The vehicle had not been restored, but it was in good shape. It was given a special licence (‘Einzelgenehmigung’) at the end of May, and ultimately registered on 5 May. It received its four-digit number the next year, which it still has to this day.

Two driver’s logs are testament to how it has been kept in a manner that is perfectly appropriate for this type of car. It was driven regularly, covering 10,000 kilometres over the past 20 years, and took part in both club meetings and rallies. The short-stroke engine and manual gear-box place the 230 SL at the sportier end of the production series, while it remains a smooth-running all-rounder in the present day. The paint was likely redone when the car was still in Germany, but otherwise the SL is still in its original condition today. The interior has a charming patina which fits perfectly with its image. This Pagoda is a car to be driven, after all, that is what the SL was made for – and that is what the SL should be!