Presented at the 1963 Geneva Motor Show, the Mercedes-Benz 230SL, with its six-cylinder engine, came to replace the poorly performing 190 SL, with only 4 cylinders, presenting the new platform with the internal designation W113.

Designed by the Daimler-Benz technical team, headed by Fritz Nallinger, its body was designed by Friedrich Geiger, although based on the studies of French designer Paul Bracq, whose work - in collaboration with the Hungarian engineer Béla Barényi - gave the car the its characteristic the concave hardtop. It was, moreover, the peculiar shape it would give to the car, the name by which it would be known: “Pagode”.

Its relative lightness - made possible by the use of aluminum in the front and rear hoods, as well as outside the doors -, the relatively short and wide chassis, the excellent suspension, the disc brakes on the front axle were all characteristics that gave the 230SL an absolutely referential behavior for the time. Its 2308 cc engine with Bosch multi-point mechanical injection now delivered 150 hp. power and 169 Nm of maximum torque.

But in 1967, after the 1966 250SL, Mercedes-Benz introduced the new M130 engine, from 2778 c.c. launching the 280SL, now with 170 hp. and 244 Nm of torque. The transmission could now be a 4-speed or 5-speed manual as an option (manufactured by ZF). The automatic transmission was 4-speed. Between 1963 and 1971, 48,912 copies of the SL were produced.

This 1968 Mercedes-Benz 280SL, with a 4-speed manual gearbox and the rare self-locking differential option, had only 4 owners, having been delivered new in Switzerland where it remained until its second American owner took it to the States United, after spending 25 years with him in Europe. Painted in silver-gray by Glasurite and with a red leather interior, it was recently restored by the renowned specialist Siegfried Linke. The model, with numbers of chassis and engine correspondents, was recently sold in the United States for $ 101,750 at the RM Auctions auction in Monterey.

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