MERCEDES - BENZ
THE 1960s
The 230, 250, 280 Pagoda SL W113
1963 – 1971
By Bernd S. Koehling
Copyright 2012 Bernd S. Koehling
Smashwords Edition
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CONTENT
The Cars
230/250/280SL W113 (1963 – 1971)
First of all 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 wouldn't 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 Friedrich Geiger, who was director in the design department headed by Karl Wilfert. Paul Bracq and Bruno Sacco, both also involved in the project, worked under Friedrich Geiger. The pagoda roof was most certainly a design from Paul Bracq. It was based on a patent of safety guru Bela Barényi and was praised for its rigidity and safety. When the car was launched in 1963 it created some sort of a shock due to its controversial roof design.
Today, almost fifty years after its launch, the pagoda SL is still regarded as something very unique and especially it is for sure universally known for its pagoda like roof design. Something neither its predecessor not its successor did accomplish. Can you ask for more as a designer?
March 2012
Bernd S. Koehling
MB 280SL W113 E28 (1968 – 1971)
Developing the SL
At the end of the fifties, Mercedes customers never had it so good. 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 37,000.- DM (9,250.- US$) for the automatic version. If you thought that a luxury cabriolet should never have more than two doors, the 220SE cabriolet was the right choice for you and could be bought for 23,400.- DM (5,850.- US$). 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 34,000.- DM (8,500.- US$), hardtop included. If you liked the looks of the SL but preferred something more docile, the 190SL could be yours for 17,650.- DM (4,410.- US$), 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 any money, most probably they had been sold below actual production costs. If there would have been 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. 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 about a SL successor in 1958 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 as 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. Tests had progressed sufficiently enough to give a newly developed 2.2 l (134 cu in) engine the internal code M 127, also 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 car should be available with both engines.
Unfortunately time was against the project. The tooling needed to produce the new fuel-injected engine wouldn't 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 at a time, when they were needed there most. 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 a later date. After all the 190SL, even with a not ideal engine, was still selling quite well.
Pictured on Dec. 13th 1959, this 1:1 model still uses the 190SL hardtop
Feb. 1960 Friedrich Geiger study of the new SL
220SL from 1961 still with a conventional yet very elegant looking hardtop
The new car should not only have a better engine, cabin and trunk should be bigger too. The engine had to be based on an existing six-cylinder, chassis and suspension had to come from a similar source and the car shouldn't be much bigger than the 190SL.
All of this could be slightly altered of course, but the concept was that a new SL had to be profitable for the company. 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 role that the previous 190SL wasn't able to fully accomplish. The price should be attractive enough that it could be sold in sufficiently large numbers. In short, this time it had to be feasible for the bean-counters too.
As everybody wanted the 220SL not to be a beefed up 190SL, Karl Wilfert, his long time colleague, friend and safety guru Béla Barényi, Paul Bracq and his superior Friedrich Geiger knew they had work to do. As instructed by Nallinger, they used the chassis and running gear of the 220b series, but shortened and strengthened the chassis so that it fit the overall dimensions of the 190SL. While first styling studies still showed a certain resemblance with the 300 SL in form of hardtop and head lights, later models became already more and more square. One day Barényi approached Geiger and Bracq and showed him the picture of a car roof he had used successfully on what he called "journalist car". It was a 220a W180 ponton with a concave roof! His experience had shown that concave roofs offer a high degree of rigidity in case of an accident. They were also much stronger. So he had constructed it that cameramen and journalists could stand on top of it to watch and film activities such as car races from a higher elevation. The new roof of the 220a was so strong that it could carry 1,000 kg (2,200 lbs) of load. Due to the roofs safety features, Barényi was able to patent it in 1956. It would be one of totally 2,500 patents in Barényi's favor. It was strong alright, but nobody had told him, it had to look good too. Now he asked Geiger and Bracq, whether that roof could possibly be useful for the new SL. But the design needed to be worked on. That's how the "pagoda" top came to life in the SL. It is not exactly clear, whether Geiger or Bracq were responsible for the pagoda roof styling, as a lot of the design work was actually a team effort. So let us assume that both had a hand in it. But the biggest part was still to come, it was not approved yet. That was the job of their equally talented and persuasive boss Karl Wilfert. Wilfert was not only a stylist or designer, for him design was art. Consequently he saw himself and his men also as artists. Art, he believed, needed to be looked at from all angles and debated. Sometimes at length. And that was his forte. Wilfert loved debating. Be sure not to avoid any arguments, was his mantra. He was famous and feared at the same time for his believe that arguments had to fly back and forth until everyone was blue in his face. He would not let you go until you had either convinced him (which was rather difficult) or had given up and agreed to his proposal. As he was luckily highly talented, many of his ideas and concepts proved to be correct.
Wilfert believed in the virtues of Barényi's concave roof and he managed to "persuade" still undecided executive board members to accept the design of the new SL, pagoda roof included. One of his main arguments for the roof design was an easier entry into the car, as side windows could be made higher. Journalists, who later heard about this said that the higher windows could have also been designed with a convex roof. They also suspected the unusual roof design to be a slight aero-dynamical disaster. This was later confirmed by Paul Bracq himself, who said that wind-canal studies hadn't been too convincing. Top speed test were mostly done with the soft top, hardly ever with the hardtop.
This picture, dated July 28th 1961, shows a 220SL with heavily padded dashboard, center console and W111 coupe (or maybe even W100) wooden instrument block (apologies for the picture quality)
The final outcome
As a styling concept it hadn't been too convincing either, as no other manufacturer had copied it. Hans Scherenberg, Nallinger's successor as board member responsible for passenger car development, mentioned in an interview later that the concave roof didn't have any purpose in terms of the SL's engineering. It was later revealed that its drag co-efficient was 0.52, with soft top it was 0.48. The one of the 190SL was 0.46, while the one of the 220SE sedan was 0.41.
Yet, what would the SL be today without that roof design. It is a hallmark, conceptualized by Barényi, refined by the Geiger/Bracq efforts and pushed through by Wilfert. Together with a beautifully balanced body design by Geiger, this SL is in its masculine yet refined presence superior to both its predecessor and successor. The nickname "Pagoda" came up first with French and Austrian journalists since its roof was reminiscent of Japanese temple architecture with its lines sloping gently inwards. But Daimler-Benz never used that word and even discouraged its personnel from using it. But wherever you travel today in the world and meet people interested in Mercedes cars, all of them know the Adenauer Mercedes, the Gullwing and the Pagoda.