Imagine yourself driving your Pagoda in the Franche-Comte, Alsace, Lorraine region of France, in a weekend with Pagoda SL Group friends, good food, wine, sightseeing and great early autumn weather.
From 1963 till 1971 there was a steady stream of W113 Pagoda roofed Mercedes Benz Sports Models arriving west to east, in Australia. They offered an elegance of style, design innovation, and build quality unmatched by their competitors and are now increasingly sought after by enthusiasts world wide. This is the story of one 1971 280SL that had an almost 40 year stop over in the USA and it’s final drive down the west coast of Southern California before being shipped from Los Angeles east to west to Australia.
The car had spent a sheltered life with just two owners in the dry climate of Walnut Creek, east of San Francisco. The second owner Wayne Dow lavished 30 years of love and care on it but following the insertion of a defibrillator decided that it was time to upgrade to something a little quicker off the mark, he was loosing out too often at the traffic lights. A black 2006 SL500 with sports pack was just what the cardiologist would have recommended, so a for sale ad was placed in The Star for a blue with vellum MBTex 280SL auto with 86,000 miles.
Geoff Eldridge and his wife Erika from Australia where looking for a good LH drive rust free classic Benz to eventually send to Switzerland as a European holiday car. Seeing the ad Geoff phoned Wayne to find out what the color “vellum” was. Wayne’s response was “a kind of dirty white”, this seemed like a painfully honest answer from a painfully honest person. Over the next two weeks numerous emails and phone calls followed and it was decided to purchase the car sight unseen.
Now having driven the car for over 1,000 miles nothing has happened to change Geoff’s initial opinion of Wayne Dow’s or the car’s honesty.
One of Geoff's reasons for buying this particular W113 was the log books, documentation and service file that came with it, even down to an unmarked copies of:
The Becker Radio Book & electrical circuit.
the Hirshman miniture boolet for the manual aerial and keys.
Kangol seat belt leaflet.
Frigiking air con booklet and warranty card.
MB owners manual and parts book.
The service data file runs to 30 meg and can be searched by date or by item replaced, Geoff can tell you when every antifreeze coolant change took place. Also included is every petrol purchase for the last 30 years and the fuel consumption between each fill. He also has nearly 40 years of actual invoices as well.
The previous owner was very disappointed when Geoff had the original unused spare tyre replaced. The carpets, door panels and boot rubber mat are original and like new. The data card shows the original engine, but this was wrecked at around 20,000 miles and was replaced.
The car also has electricly heated rear window in the hardtop, and rectangular Bosch under bumper bar fog lights, not mounted at present.
Geoff has by now taken posession of the car in Australia. Read Geoff's posts on the forum to learn how he is getting on with it!
