Interesting historic info

[Cees Klumper]

From the "Faszination SL - W113" book that was published last year by Daimler-Chrysler, I took the following information:

- the "Pagoda" name was coined by the staff at the passenger car body development department at the Sindelfingen plant, before the 230 SL was introduced in March 1963.

- the W113 was the first convertible car in the world to feature a safety cage construction.

- the Pagoda roof design was conceived by three people: Karl Wilfert, Bela Barenyi (both gentlemen being Austrian by birth) and Paul Bracq, who was French.

- the hardtop design led to a drag coefficent of 0.51 which was very poor compared to other cars of that era - in fact, worse than the predecessor 190 SL and on par with the current-day "G" wagon. This led to higher fuel consumption and poorer performance. The car was some 3 to 4 km/h faster with the soft-top.

- supposedly, the soft top on the 230 SL was the fastest to put up and take down of any open European car of the day.

- the 230 SL was the first Mercedes passenger car to be equipped with radial tires. Also it was the first German car to come with a 3-phase alternator (whatever that means!).

Cees Klumper in Amsterdam
'69 white 280 SL automatic

[Malc]

quote:Originally posted by cees klumper
 Also it was the first German car to come with a 3-phase alternator (whatever that means!).

Cees Klumper in Amsterdam
'69 white 280 SL automatic

I think that means it had 3 seperate windings of the rotor for more efficient power gerneration
Malc

[Klaus]

"Fascination SL - W113" is written by Guenter Engelen. It clarifies what Engelen did not say in his  prior book "From Baroque to the Pagoda", namely that Friedrich Geiger (who is credited with the W113 design in the Baroque-Pagoda book) was Paul Bracq's boss, and that Paul Bracq designed the W113. Engelen writes "....the creative young Frenchman [Bracq] was the ideal complement to his boss, the strict Swabian designer Friedrich Geiger".

Klaus
1969 280 SL

[114015]

Hello Cees & others,

A 3-way alternator is the today commonly used type of generator (Lichtmaschine) in cars. It replaces the formerly used direct-current generators. The older ones can easily be distinguished in that they are long and with a short diameter. Today's alternators (and the ones of the Pagodas) are short and have a pretty wide diameter. Both use different regulators.
The 3-way alternators provide faster charging of the battery, higher ampère numbers and have full performance mostly at idle or slightly above.

Best,

Achim

Achim
(Magdeburg, Germany)