The Audrey Hepburn of Cars

Posted on Mar 10, 2020 in Antique | Comments Off on The Audrey Hepburn of Cars

“Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz…”

Mercedes Benz has always been held as one of the most prestigious automotive marques in history. This year the company will introduce a new SL model, and in celebration of that milestone, I decided to reflect back on what I believe was the prettiest and classiest of all the SL models.

The first SL was, of course the 300. Named the Gullwing, for the upward opening doors, it started life as a race car and ended as an icon, and one of the first real supercars. In German, SL means Sehr Leicht (Very Light), but the car is referred to as Sport Leicht (Sport Light). By the way, the name Mercedes is actually the name of Mercedes Jellinek, the daughter of an Austrian diplomat who first started building cars with Daimler (DMG) cars, under the direction of Wilhelm Maybach. Tragically, she died penniless at 39 years old. But I digress…

The W 113, as it was officially called, was styled by Paul Bracq and Bela Barenyi. The duo were an amazing union of automotive talent, with Mr. Bracq being the man who designed the ultimate power car, the Mercedes 600, a car favored by kings, dictators, celebrities, and popes. Mr. Barenyi was known as the father of passive safety in automobiles, had over twice as many patents as Thomas Edison, and was even credited for conceiving the basic design of the Volkswagen Beetle, 5 years before Ferdinand Porsche.

The W 113 was dubbed the Pagoda because of the dip in the center of the removable hardtop. This dip reminded automotive journalists of Japanese architecture, and the name stuck. It remains the epitome of timeless elegance. First introduced at the Geneva Motor show in 1963, the classic, crisp styling is still relevant almost 50 years later.

Built to replace the iconic 300SL and the 190SL, the W 113 ran from 1963 to 1971. The car was shown to the press two weeks before it debuted, which was a first for Mercedes Benz. At that debut, the press said it looked like a tree had fallen on it, and didn’t quite accept the new roofline. They were impressed by its performance, even though it only had a 2.3L engine. The car took off at the Montreaux circuit and left a lap time that was just .02 seconds behind a Ferrari 250GT Berlinetta.

The car was built at a time when Mercedes quality was everything. The fit and finish was spectacular, and the 40 plus pounds of paint it carried made it sparkle like a gem. It was the first Mercedes that could be ordered with power steering, and an automatic transmission, something the European buyers balked at. The fat and Lazy Americans loved the combination, and it sold in droves here. In 1967, the car was given the engine from the 250 sedan series, which unfortunately suffered from reliability problems at high speed, and a predilection for gorging itself on gasoline. Eventually it was replaced with the 2.8 liter, denoted by the name 280 SL.

The W 113 model SL is the most elegant of all models, the Audrey Hepburn of the car world. The unadorned body lines, the micro thin B and C pillars, and that incomparable Pagoda roof make it one of the 100 most beautiful cars ever made. Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear once said of driving the Pagoda, “I look at everybody else going around in their air conditioned Euro boxes, and I just feel…better off.”