...design changes...only driven by US safety laws...
...Paul Bracq had left Mercedes Benz by the time the changes were made...
Many speak of
US safety rules as if there is something WRONG with them. Eventually Europe and the rest of the world caught up with these rules, emissions and otherwise.
My uncle, the former owner of my [1969] 280SL, was nearly killed in his [1964] 230SL in a horrific crash--thank goodness for SOME safety design.
There's been talk on the forums often about "purity of design" and things such as removing the bumper overriders. Go price a new set of bumpers before you answer that question...
Having hit a deer once at 70MPH I'm sure glad I had a lot of "impure design" and lots of
US safety features in my car. Thank goodness it wasn't the Pagoda. It would have been destroyed.
I'm very happy I have bumper overriders, proper and modern tail lamp colors, side markers instead of reflectors, retractable 3-point seat belts (done per MB specs) and anything else the MB engineers did on the Pagoda to make it a safer car. Pure of design or not.
Paul Bracq left MB in 1967 to work at Brissonneau and Lotz.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brissonneau_and_Lotz He didn't just work on trains, but also contract work for automotive which led to him being hired by BMW. Since a number of changes to the Pagoda series were in place by the 1969 production year, I'd suggest a lot of this design work may have been in the pipeline in Bracq's last days at MB though I don't know what he was working on in 1966-1967.
