The Last Pagoda

[pagodapete]

Hi All,
Regarding the final Pagoda, the 280SL ending in serial number 23885, does anyone know who currently owns it or where it is located?

I had previously been told it resided with Mercedes-Benz in Germany, but recently someone said, “No, it is in a private collection.”

[Tx246]

About 10-15 years ago, it was just south of Houston and offered for sale

[MikeSimon]

It would have been nice, if someone, way back when, would have started a "registry". It doesn't necessarily have to be an owners registry but a simple log by VIN number of Pagodas known and any details about them. Just look at all of them sold on BaT. About 30 years ago, I started that for one of the motorcycle models I am involved with. Proud to say, it has grown to the most comprehensive data base about that particular model.

[Jack the Knife]

We can always start today!

[Lori]

https://www.sl113.org/wiki/Registry/Start

[Cees Klumper]

Thanks Lori. We started the registry in 2002 but we could do a better job advertising its existence.

[lreppond]

Thanks Lori. We started the registry in 2002 but we could do a better job advertising its existence.

When I joined this club, the first thing I did was to add my car to the registry.  I would suggest that when a new member joins, the club suggests adding their car. I have no idea if other pagoda clubs have similar registries, but it would be very nice if those were added to what we have.  I’m a member of the Continental Mark II club and their registry includes the car’s ORIGNAL color, Interior, owner and selling dealer as well as previous owners, and where the car has been located over the years.  I know much of that info is unavailable for Pagodas but it is useful in knowing where the car was kept over the years. 

[Jack the Knife]

Would be nice to have a little form instead of an email.

[AdelaidePagoda]

This registry is a fantastic addition to the history of W113’s. Congratulations to whoever started it and those that have added their own cars.

One humble suggestion is that it should be reformatted so that it starts at the beginning of the first car off the production line and continue through until the last car off the production line. Instead it reads like a ‘dogs breakfast’ as we would call it here in Australia 😂

Whoever owns the data perhaps can comment on whether this is possible or not. If possible but technically not a skill set the owner has, I am sure there are others who would volunteer to do so.

[pagodapete]

Great idea to have the registry populate chronologically by chassis number.

[MikeSimon]

It says the list is "sortable". And when you click on the VIN number column, it will change the list to VINs in ascending order, giving you the timeline

[clunker]

I have been remiss in not adding my 280SL earlier (now addressed). This was here all along, a sortable reasonably comprehensive list.

Perhaps we could include anonymous records of vehicles seen on BaT (461 sales), etc? If that acceptable then here is an XLS (inside a .zip file so it can be uploaded here) that I just pulled together today. It has the VIN and other basic details from all the BaT W113 auctions since 2014. I also attach a summary table PDF of the results through now. It should be a complete list and I have done some data validation/corrections from the listings. It does not account for repeat / return auctions, they count twice.

[note the raw data includes 3 withdrawn auctions and 18 sales of toolkits etc] 

- UPDATE: I have included a column "serial #" in the xls. This is the <type>.<sequence> from the VIN where <type> = (042, 043, 044) and <sequence> is last six digits of VIN. Using the VIN alone to sort the list has the transmission code mess up the sequence; using the last six digits only has an issue with the sequence number overlapping between the types.

[AdelaidePagoda]

Thanks MikeSimon, I had logged into the site through my iPad so could not see the sortable nature of the spreadsheet. I trust logging in through my computer will resolve this.

[rwmastel]

Congratulations to whoever started it and those that have added their own cars.

While forming SL113.org 23 years ago, us founders created the registry.  There may have been a registry on the preceeding eGroups site.  Yes, it's basic.  Yes, it doesn't have any data format control (VINs of various formats).  But, it's something.

Would like to hear people's thoughts on dumping random car information from sales posting (BaT and others).  Originally, I think the intent was to track members' cars, but this seems worth discussing.

[clunker]

The Registry (currently) has a very impressive 718 entries, with VINs for 654 entries (646 different W113s).

It was perhaps not obvious its purpose was to track members' cars, as there is rarely any link back to the member's handle.

The Registry web page says "The Registry is a valuable source of information about W113 Pagodas. Accurate and complete information in the Registry about a large number of cars will allow owners to learn about cars built about the same time as their car; about cars with similar features and options; and to extract statistics about cars with manual or automatic transmissions, as just a few examples." So in that spirit I spent some effort to extract some (perhaps) useful data from BaT.

Like it or not BaT is now a major channel for the trading of the W113. The list I retrieved (and spent time cleaning/verifying accurate VINs) has:
- 612 transactions involving W113s (excluding parts) with over 200 in the last two years;
- 552 different W113s;
- 462 sales of 417 different vehicles;
- 26 of the W113s in the Registry (with VIN listed) appeared on BaT, with 7 having traded.

The BaT data includes links each auction page with a substantial number of photos for reference (and some valuable detail information) furthering the purpose (listed above) from the Registry web page, particularly with respect to "allow[ing] owners to learn about cars built about the same time as their car; about cars with similar features and options;"

I thought this would be useful information for the community  - I did not think it a "dumping [of] random car information".

[rwmastel]

Charles,

Thanks for posting the registry description and elaborating on your work.  If there were a poll started, I would vote to include your information.

[Jack the Knife]

I have noticed what's conspicuously lacking is a sub-forum to post cars we find for sale in various venues. It doesn't seem to belong in 'commercial advertising' with the way it is currently worded. Other car forums I frequent (namely e9 forum) has very active discussions about such things, and they're often educational. Their registry plays a role in this, as well, with whatever car being discussed being added to or cross-referenced with the registry.

[zoegrlh]

JTK good idea, however, when we seem to see a Pagoda at an online auction, and critique the pricing, or the write-up. But, if someone is looking for purchasing a Pagoda  from on line site, and we as a club make notes of how good or poor the car is, I think is a good thing for a purchaser to make an informed decision. My two cents.

[Cees Klumper]

I sometimes comment on BAT auction Pagodas but not very often. It seems there's just so many, and the level of interest in quality commentary from potential buyers so low, that it doesn't seem to be very worthwhile. You're up against people like dollycat who for some reason shower praise on each and every car on offer no matter the condition (but never bid or buy anything themselves). Then final sales prices often seem to have surprisingly little relation to the condition of the cars.
But, in terms of capturing useful info from BAT for the database - that does make sense.

[Jack the Knife]

I sometimes comment on BAT auction Pagodas but not very often. It seems there's just so many, and the level of interest in quality commentary from potential buyers so low, that it doesn't seem to be very worthwhile. You're up against people like dollycat who for some reason shower praise on each and every car on offer no matter the condition (but never bid or buy anything themselves). Then final sales prices often seem to have surprisingly little relation to the condition of the cars.
But, in terms of capturing useful info from BAT for the database - that does make sense.

Not to mention another twerp, MilleMiglia or whatever, who is often outright wrong on his commentary.. and I'm no expert!

[clunker]

Hear, hear Cees and Jack. Some very obvious flaws (and serious for a buyer) pass uncommented, yet filler posts abound along with unimportant drivel.

That said it is the BaT listing details themselves that are of interest to us (rather than the comments section, or even the auction.) The listings always have a VIN (mostly correct) and most often the mileage. For an owner looking to find W113s of close serial #, the BaT listings are a decent source of relevant pictures - and some of the professional listings of pristine vehicles give a virtual reference set of images.

I believe we should look to capture as much of this information for our reference purposes. It could be a separate table/wiki from the Registry of members cars and its purpose should be to glean details of W113s from whatever source, and permit links to that source (eg BaT, Hemmings, etc.)

Further it may be of use and entertainment to have a separate forum dedicated to market color and commentary, as Jack proposes.

[Garry]

I believe one of the reasons we put the listings etc in the Commercial area was due to links often disappearing after a period of time and thus be a loose end post. Whilst I think having a seperate area for these is a good idea, putting them in the Register will probably need to be done as a task to load the data but removes the links.

Peter, our Admin, may be able to give more detail.

Garry

[clunker]

I note BaT listings seem to remain, the earliest I found was 2014. That said, they need to be parsed in order to extract the VIN and details, etc. in any case - so they would need to be part of a formal table.

Also, I agree I think the purpose with the Commercial section is to allow our commercial vendors to add offerings of interest - to have it padded with detail on market color or stream of observed (not owned listings) would lose visibility for those vendors.

[MikeSimon]

I sometimes comment on BAT auction Pagodas but not very often. It seems there's just so many, and the level of interest in quality commentary from potential buyers so low, that it doesn't seem to be very worthwhile. You're up against people like dollycat who for some reason shower praise on each and every car on offer no matter the condition (but never bid or buy anything themselves). Then final sales prices often seem to have surprisingly little relation to the condition of the cars.
But, in terms of capturing useful info from BAT for the database - that does make sense.

I haven't been there in a while, although I occasionally found details of W113 descriptions and photos interesting, especially if you work on your own car and need some information. The dollycat guy bugged me too. It looks like he copies and pastes the same comment over and over. Usually "what a beauty" and "sumptuous interior". If he has something else to say, it is usually copied from the internet. I think he wants to be the No1 commentator on BaT. Maybe they give out a price at the end of the year. I think he showed up here for a short period of time, I recognized his comment, that he was "helping in restoring a 280SL and a 6.3L (?)". Now he has turned into an expert in quite a lot fo classic cars.

[Jack the Knife]

I haven't been there in a while, although I occasionally found details of W113 descriptions and photos interesting, especially if you work on your own car and need some information. The dollycat guy bugged me too. It looks like he copies and pastes the same comment over and over. Usually "what a beauty" and "sumptuous interior". If he has something else to say, it is usually copied from the internet. I think he wants to be the No1 commentator on BaT. Maybe they give out a price at the end of the year. I think he showed up here for a short period of time, I recognized his comment, that he was "helping in restoring a 280SL and a 6.3L (?)". Now he has turned into an expert in quite a lot fo classic cars.

Mike, thought about your comment last night when I replied to this guy on the Japanese W100 auction. I replied to some guy, "@letthegypsyhaveit," in re: ability to drive this W100 in Japan for a month or so after the auction. Gave what I thought was a pretty good answer and he immediately commented something really weird and inane. I moderate a penpalling community and the use/overuse of ChatGPT and similar LLMs in penpalling has lately been a big issue, so I've gotten pretty good at recognizing people doing this. Anyway, his comment gave me a chatbot vibe, since it was so weirdly inane and irrelevant: https://bringatrailer.com/member/letthegypsyhaveit/

Look at this guy's comments. If he isn't a chatbot, then he's got a sad and stupid hobby. I've noticed this more and more on BaT, dollycat clones.