Quick set of shots from the 50th celebration in Willingen....

[Peter van Es]

Hi all,

a great weekend, with 210 Pagoda's, around 500 people from all over the world, including a large contingent of Pagoda SL Group members enjoyed a great weekend. We had great weather, many Pagoda's, wonderful company, good food, lots to drink and FAR TOO LITTLE SLEEP!

I've included a few photographs, look to further issues of Pagoda Notes and Pagoda World for more detailed stories...



On the way to Willingen I drove my car for the 330 km's at speeds between 120 km/h (4000 revs) and 130 km/h (4200 revs) constantly, top down, for almost three hours. The car performed beautifully, and at these speeds, the road noise drowns out engine noise... We got there by 11:20 and I then spent most of the rest of the day greeting international visitors, seeing friends old and new!



The original Pagoda that participated in the Spa-Sofie-Liege rally that features in our logo was there also. Achim corrected me after the Technoclassica that no, it was not a replica but the real deal. It is now owned by Dr. York Seifert who shall be receiving one of our decals soon to stick on the windscreen. He explained to me that the engine has a really weird engine number, emanating from the research and development department, and that it has a very low ratio rear axle, giving it great acceleration in the mountain, but a very noise top speed.

The next picture shows the engine bay. DISCUSS!



Pagoda Center Stickel, one of the eminent restorers in Germany participated with this yellow Pagoda. I needed sunglasses to look at it after all the "celebrating" we did.



Nice view of cars parked on Tennis court



Have YOU ever seen this many Pagoda's in your rear view mirror ?



And yes, Tom from Virginia with his two lovely daughters (yeah, and his car is also sorta, nice) was there too!



Pagoda traffic jam for photo opportunity at a castle



The ladies, amongst the hard working volunteers from Regional Club Dortmund that made it all work...



Lovely landscape and towns during the drive



Shot showing the variety of wheel types...



On Sunday we got all cars together at the bottom of the ski-jumping hill for hundreds of wonderful photo opportunities... see an impression below....











But the piece de resistance was the flying in of a newly restored Pagoda by Helicopter...



To be placed at the base of the



0 of the 50th...



We all had a great time at this wonderful event and would like to thank Achim for all his hard work.




Peter

[JamesL]

Some themes...

Trouble finding a parking spot...


Beer, (a rare sighting of Mr Howard and some serving wench (prays wife doesn't read this))


and driving

[Peter van Es]

Always fun to see…. some of the members of our group (that I managed to catch - if you are not on here, sorry)….

By handle, from top left go to the right, then bottom, and circle around like that…

Hans\
Erik
Rick007
Flyair
Martijn
JonnyB
Raymond
Brian in  NL
Kemal
Tom
sandcrab59
pablo_o2
JamesL
JJD
Drewtee

Using the Search function you can find their posts, and send them a PM if you like!

Peter

[Peter van Es]

Hey, why am I on none of these shots?

[Peter van Es]

Here we are, smiling big after just punishing the car around a private circuit....

[49er]

Only one word, AMAZING!! Great photos Peter (and James) and what a wonderful turn out of owners and their prized Pagodas. Even a helicopter!! Weather looked like it cooperated too

John

[gerster]

Phantastic, wish I had been there!

[Rolf-Dieter ✝︎]

Thank you for sharing the great photographs  Peter and James, looks like a wonderful time had by everyone. Great photographs, hope others will post as well.

PS. Peter when I see your car I'm thinking looks like mine ... the two must be twins (cars that is)

This is a nice photo link from the German Folks site ====> https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=437681726338844&set=a.437613453012338.1073741834.204772856296400&type=3&l=f71627b952&theater

Enjoy!

[Miloslav Maun]

We have just arrived on Saturday afternoon and came to the meeting in front of the ski jump.
I have never seen so many pagodas in one place. It was amazing.
Here are some photos we took:
http://muf911.rajce.idnes.cz/50_Jahre_Pagode/

plus one panorama picture: http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=320c1f0e-f85a-4bcd-88c4-0c8200ceae48

[JamesL]

Muf

That panoramic shot was taken after I left - the gap in the "front" row had been me - awful trip there so wanted to put km behind me before it got too late in the day. As it was, it was a very uneventful trip home. We also guessed it would take a while for the car-park to empty!

Was it your car being driven on Saturday by the two very glamourous ladies in head scarves (it was a Czech car)? They were a photo opportunity that I missed!

[Miloslav Maun]

James, this is a panorama taken a bit earlier: http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=48697117-6e82-40a7-b6d1-cbc106b596a3
Maybe you can find yourself there. It not so nice as the previous one, I was still learning to use the software.

I'm guess it was not us, the czech car you saw. There was another owner of two pagodas from the Czech Republic, one of his cars was driven by his wife and doughter. We have a white pagoda with blue leather and top (last picture of the gallery for example).

[Peter van Es]

Here's a group photo of (some, most?) of the people who frequent our forum regularly, and were in Willingen. Greetings to all other members of the Group from us all!



Peter

[Peter van Es]

Dear all,

all my photographs are now available at: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/114896020499069304582

This is our Pagoda SL Group official community. I created it so that photographs and albums are easier to upload. Google+ has better security than Facebook. Technical and content rich posts should still be made on http://www.sl113.org/ but community or social posts can be made at either site.

If you have photo's of the 50th event, and a Google+ account, feel free to join and upload them at Google+

Peter van Es

[kampala]

Achim good to see you in the photo above ... very sorry I could not make it.  I am sure this group appreciate all the work you put towards this.



These photos are serious Pagoda overload  ... really appreciate them.   Feel like I need a cigarette now  ... and I don't smoke.





 

[GGR]

This must have been amazing! Well done!

[Nate]

Great pics!  Now we know where all of the good Pagoda's from the US end up!

[Brian in NL]

Great collection of photos, Peter. Thanks so much for sharing!  I'll post some of mine when I have some time.

In the meantime, I have made my Facebook album public if anyone wants to check out some more pics: 

https://www.facebook.com/brian.akre/media_set?set=a.10151770330663270.1073741848.779593269&type=3

Cheers,
Brian

[Peter van Es]

Alf has posted photographs and film.

[Peter van Es]

And I've created a little video snippet: https://plus.google.com/u/0/103192623120214885320/posts/8qMN9ZN6q8P

[71Beige280SL]

Absolutely fabulous photos! Thanks for sharing them with the Forum. I have to admit, seeing the Pagoda being lifted by the helicopter was a tad disconcerting! If that were my Pagoda, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to watch.

[Peter van Es]

More Pagoda Pictures from the event at Willingen: http://slpagode.mercedes-benz-clubs.com/Jahrestreffen/Bilder+Willingen+2013/356/de/001

[Peter van Es]

A few shots from Birgit Göling...

A number of well known members of this group, plus Achim and Helma Sperling, who did so much to organise the event... and your president all tuxe'd out..

[Peter van Es]

And here's the official link from the Mercedes Benz Magazine... http://www5.mercedes-benz.com/en/history/the-most-attractive-three-pointed-star-on-the-road-has-something-to-celebrate-230-sl-pagoda-w113/

[Brian in NL]

Yet more photos from Willingen on my Flickr site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianakre/sets/72157635157194841/with/9556205915/

Spent Saturday following Martijn's beautiful blue 250SL, which means he and copilot Jon are in a lot of my pics!

Enjoy.

Brian

[Peter van Es]

Or, for a nice video: http://cabriotv.de/Video/50-Jahre-Pagode