Right, marketing term. But the "sports cars" of the 60s, the MGBs, the Austin-Healeys, etc. all had some kind of race history at least with owners, (maybe not factory) and were seen at the races. Not that the Pagoda was never raced (Peter Lesler, former member here had a race prepared Pagoda, complete with fuel cell, etc.) but it wasn't common.
Just as it wasn't so common for people to race R129s in their era (though
very powerful variants were surely made!), or for most G-wagen owners to use them for their true capabilities (at least not until they got 'cheap enough' to do so, for some people) ... I mean, isn't this just the way of things? If a manufacturer made it easy to modify their vehicles and they depreciated well enough to be considered disposable for racing, then such a car was often raced. Or if someone championed that car. It's funny, Mercedes has this tendency to release a cool vehicle and soften it with time.. I guess that's why they'd remained in business so long, not alienating their core demographic (until recently, that is). The G has a plastic bumper now, and though, sure, it still has locking diffs and whatnot, it's really just a GLS with off-roading pretensions that cosplays the old one. But that's what the people wanted. And I believe it, having known many of them when I lived in Miami.. the other core demographic in LA is no different. But you're right, it was never common to really modify these cars, and most modifications look goofy since it was never really professionals making something specifically for our cars...
Around my parts, people around used to call the Pagodas (and the 107s mostly) the "JI Jeep," that is, John's Island Jeep. It's a neighborhood here with a lot of people in that target demographic. And they'd "go anywhere, do anything" in their car. You'd see them everywhere. And I guess they're pretty good at most everything they do, and in such a small and high quality package, I guess there was really almost no competition. I can't think of anything *exactly* cross shopped with the 113. I suppose I could see someone cross shopping a
base 911 Targa (not the s), depending on if they wanted a little more lux or a little more sporty, though there was no comparison at the top end of the Porsche stable in any year, no doubt.
Of course, if you look at the contemporary reviews and tests by the "experts", you can find some of the comparisons for the Pagoda.
Autocar in March of 1963 compared the 230SL with the Lancia Fulvia. Two totally different cars and the only reason they did the comparo was, they were both new models shown at the Geneva Motor Show.
Motor Did a 230SL Automatic road test in 1965 and the performance was compared to the Fiat 2300S, Aston Martin DB5, Jaguar XKE 4.2 Jensen CV-8 and Alfa Romeo Giulia SS
Car Did a one-on-one comparison in December 1965 between the Fiat 2300S and 230SL
Sports Car World In December 1967 calls the SL an "expensive cruiser" and makes it part of the "America's Cup Crowd".
Motor In September 1968 tests the 280SL as part of "Extravagant Two-Seaters: among the Triumph TR5, Lotus Elan S4, Marcos 1600, Jaguar XKE and the AC428.
The finally Road&Track in June 1969 tests "Four Luxury GTs" 280SL, Corvette, Jaguar XKE and Porsche 911T. Prices as tested were $6392, $6495 and $6418 for the three "competitors and a whopping $7833.- for the SL.
So, it is obvious that it has always been difficult to put the Pagoda in a group of "peers" as the car did not really compare with anything else as apples to apples.
I think it was always hard to make apples-to-apples comparisons between any of the "really good" cars of the time, since they all were somewhere far from their "peers" on the Venn diagram of performance, comfort, and quality. Excelling in any typically adding up to a big ticket. Imagine if the XKE had a
significantly nicer interior... they might've been in Ferrari or Aston Martin territory price wise and they might not have sold so many of them. Same for the SL. If there had been some very high performance trim (which had been spit-balled at least according to Bracq's drawings of the "300 SLX" that are floating about), then again, they'd be competing with Ferrari and Aston Martin of the time... Mercedes to this day has been trying to compete against Porsche in the sports car space, and the AMG GT alienated a lot of the core Mercedes customer, with the number one complaint I ever heard being that it was just too harsh riding. I was interested in buying a GTC and found that to be true, myself. The newest "AMG GT" is debased, much softer, more of a modern "SLC" but much more svelte. I looked at one, nice car... but as an aside, I feel the AMG GT will appreciate, since that seems to be the end of the line for that kind of car as far as MBZ is concerned. And again, it never really did so well against the 911 in the marketplace, and didn't hold its value nearly as well (I thought they were a bargain for a time for that reason). And the first year had some issues, too, but Porsche has had those times as well... rambling here but I think in this day and age manufacturers are trying to make a "sports car" (really just performance GT cars for stoplight-to-stoplight and maybe canyon carving in style and luxury) that is all things to all people, when they all used to have their own niche and mostly distinctive styling.
