The hardtop is actually silver although the soft top is black.
I had purchased the car from Tony Labella, a 113 specialist in NJ, some 4 years ago. The car had lived in the Atlanta area prior to its life here in Metropolitan NY. Its previous history is little known although I did manage to find some factory cards written in German pertaining to the car.
It had some 85,000 miles on the clock at time of purchase. A new canvas top was fitted along with new leathers for the seats, carpets and visors. The seats had also been reshaped. A new air con was installed and the original non functioning Becker radio (AM/FM) was replaced with a Blaupunkt CD player. Despite the "improved" sound quality, many of you will be pleased to know that no new speakers had been added and it still runs on the very popular 1960's monaural sound. Aside from that, little else had been touched. The paint is obviously not original. However, I'm thankful that silver hides a lot of the flaws. An interesting thing that Tony had pointed out is that the battery protection plate located behind the driver side of the front grill is in its body colour. This usually implies that the car had not been involved in a heavy front end collision as most body shops simply would have removed it or sprayed it in black. Don't know if this is true but I would imagine someone from the group will point that out if it isn't.
It took about a good 6 months for Tony to find this car. I had narrowed my search to two colours. The silver you see in the pictures or one in navy blue. Since I live in the city, I had wanted one in automatic. Months went by and there was nothing matching my requirements. Finally, Tony called up and told me he had found one in silver with a 4 speed box. Not wanting to wait any longer, I had agreed to it and I'm glad I did.
After all the aforementioned work had been performed, I picked up the car the day after JFK, jr.'s plane went down. Not a good omen I thought as about a month later the car had to go back to Tony for months of heater core repair. After this was done, the car had beeen running more or less well considering it is over 30 years of age. There had been some odd sounds here and there but nothing too drastic (fingers crossed).
I really do enjoy the car. I love the exhaust note and the way how it can keep up with modern day traffic. One word springs to mind on how best to describe the car. "Peppy." It's not an outright performance sports car but yet it is terribly quick and nimble. I love chucking this car round corners. An absolute pleasure! Since the car is in great "driver" condition, I use it daily when it is out of storage. I drive it to work, to restaurants and to golf courses on weekends. The costs in running and owning one is relatively low. I don't even worry if the car is left on the streets with the top down...except when it rains of course. It is a very usable classic car.
I received the club magazine last night and I had particularly enjoyed the piece on living with an SL in the city. Everyone under the sun wants to talk to you whilst driving the car. It makes the city a whole lot friendlier...sometimes a bit too friendly. One last point is that I wonder if anyone has heard from people that the 113 is a "woman's car." It could be said in envy. In any event, I tend to agree as the attention this baby gets from women is simply unbelivable! As I said, it makes the city a whole lot friendlier.
Anyway, best to sign off before this becomes a novel. Thanks for the good work. Looking forward to the David Couthard article in the next issue. Would love to read about travel stories with the SL and route recommendations in future issues.
Cheers!
