How Many Left?

[Markbhai]

I wonder if this is true, it seems according to the UK Department of Transport that our wonderful cars are few and far between...but so few?

http://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/vehicle/mercedes_230_sl#!tax

248 on the road
33 classified as Off the Road.

Regards

Mark.

[Cees Klumper]

There should be around 35,000 left in the world.

[Flyair]

we estimate around 50-60 in Poland

[Benz Dr.]

35,000 runing cars or 35,000 examples? Either way, it sounds high to me. I know of quite a few that will never be seen again. They're so rusty they could never be repaired relative to a decent car without all of those problems.

[mdsalemi]

35,000 runing cars or 35,000 examples? Either way, it sounds high to me. I know of quite a few that will never be seen again. They're so rusty they could never be repaired relative to a decent car without all of those problems.

Doc is probably right.  We have no way to prove anything, but for every running example I know of I've seen several that are not. 

About 40-50% still not crushed and "on this earth"? This would include carcasses such as those at Gernold's parking lot?
About 25-35% running?

Guesses mind you, just guesses...

[Benz Dr.]

I believe that there are about 10,000 190SL's left. About half of them are still running in some fashion and about 3 - 4 thousand are restored or driveable.

 They made about twice as many 113's so that would make about 7 - 8 thousand driveable 113 cars world wide, if you look at it the same way as 190SL's. Being newer with better undercoating ( because rust kills almost every one of them ) there should be a higher precentage of them still around.
 Having drive train componets that are compatible with sedans makes the mechanical element of ownership much more possible. However, when is the last time you saw a 108 250SE or a 280SE for sale? Those old sedans are disappearing quickly. I was lucky enough to find an example of each this year otherwise the barrel would be getting rather empty.

 I've parted down four of them which are probably razor blades by now.   

[w113dude]

I think the fact that 190sl fetch nearly twice the amount than it's younger cousin the w113 has a lot to do with it, makes the car more collectable and buyer don't mind spending the money in restoration as it holds it's value, that and a closer resemblance to the 300sl ( I doubt very much it's because of it's performance  , I remember about 25 years ago the 190sl were almost same price as our Pagodas, look where they are today.

[Cees Klumper]

There should be around 35,000 left in the world

I base that on the number of Pagodas consistenly for sale in Holland (around 100, I've counted them), then extrapolating that figure to the number likely not for sale, then multiplying based on population figures to the western world. It could be high, but considering these were mostly second or third cars owned by relatively well-to-do people, I'm comfortable that it's an educated guess. Perhaps it's much lower but I don't think it would be much less than 25,000, half of what was manufactured.