Wow!!! what a difference.

[n/a]

I have had my 230 for about two years now and I have always enjoyed driving it. I have also done several things to help the car's performance (tune ups, adjustments etc. nothing fancy) It has always run great but I have always thought it a little on the slow side, but I don’t typically drive the car hard so it didn’t matter much.
Well this weekend I was looking around under the hood and I noticed that I had some play in the throttle linkage. After getting someone to step on the gas pedal while I watched the linkage from above, I realized that I have only been getting about 2/3 of full throttle. After solving this linkage problem I have a new love for my pagoda.This thing is a whole new experience. I now understand the true heritage of this car!!      


Jerry P.

[n/a]

Good goin' Jerry.  Now, when you put the "pedal to the metal" it will mean something.  Discovering life's little pleasures.
Regards,
Don

[Douglas]

Jerry, I've had a similar experience with another car. It was like night & day and a real kick after having owned the car for a couple of years in its de-tuned state.

In an age where so many of us look to aftermarket "upgrades" for performance enhancements, the solution can sometimes be just getting the darn thing running the way it's supposed to.

Douglas Kim
New York, NY
280 SL #018260

[Douglas]

I'd like to expound on this a bit further. One of my pet annoyances is how classic car magazines will review cars that are 40+ years old and make pronouncements about a model of car based on the characteristics of one example.

Thoroughbred & Classic Cars did exactly this when they pronounced the 230 SL gearchange to be "imprecise, wobbly, vague, feeble." (May of '95)

Rubbish! This is clearly a case of one bad apple spoiling it for the others. Anyone who has driven a Pagoda with a decent gearbox will confirm this.

In fact, my understanding is that a 230 SL with a manual gearbox can be one of the very best-driving Pagodas.

It's fair to say that after 40+ years of "selective" maintenance, any car will end up reflecting the characteristics of its owners as well as its engineers.

Douglas Kim
New York, NY
280 SL #018260

[Benz Dr.]

Hummm...... I wonder how many times I've said this. You can improve certain things but you need it to be working properly first.

Dan c
SL Barn

Daniel G Caron

[Mike Hughes]

More recently, Sports Car Market did a comparison test of several SLs and pronounced that the 300SL was the last Mercedes with a decent gear change.  The 230SL that they drove had just undergone a "complete" restoration and they suggested that the awful feel of the gear change on that Pagoda SL was the reason why so many were eventually built with automatics...  An associate, who was largely instrumental in my acquiring my `66 230SL, has a `69 4 speed with only 22k on the clock that he let me drive once when it had only 17k on it and I thought that the gear change was wonderful!

- Mike Hughes  -ô¿ô-