Top speed

[Cees Klumper]

Today I decided to take my car (rebuilt engine, now run in) to a high speed, to see how it would do. I went no further than 5,500 RPM which took it to 180 KPH (around 112 MPH) and this took no time at all, it pulled very strongly and easily to this speed. I did not want to go any further now, but will do so at some point. Based on how my car runs, I expect it will reach 195 KPH (120 MPH).

Question: to what speed have you taken your car and was this as far as it would go?

Cees Klumper in Amsterdam
'69 white 280 SL automatic

[Douglas]

Speedometer error is pretty great at those speeds, Cees. I wouldn't put too much stock in those numbers. I suppose if everyone is, more or less, equally inaccurate I suppose you could draw some conclusions here as to relative power.

Douglas Kim
New York, NY
280 SL #018260

[J. Huber]

Hey Cees.

In every discussion about top speeds, high RPMs, etc. I am always the fuddy-duddy that says "slow down and be gentle" and enjoy the ride in our beloved toys....

Having said that, there was a time when I was much less fuddy-duddy and much more of a kind of crazy kid -- As I recall, when I was about 17, I "borrowed" the folks 230SL and thought it would be really cool to hit 200 (kphs)... I think I made it.

25 years later, I hardly go much over 110KPH or about 65-70. Call me a fuddy-duddy...



James
63 230SL

[Richard Madison]

Cees:

I assume this question is for autobahn drivers since only 8 states in the USA allow speeds as high as 75 mph, the other 42 states have a lower maximum speed limit...and certainly no one using this Forum would speed just to test their car...

Richard M

[Cees Klumper]

Doug - I calibrated my speedo with a 2004 Audi A6 last week (at a relatively high speed) and it turned out to read 10% too low - due to my rear axle swap two years ago. So I think I'm in the ballpark.
Richard - in the Netherlands the maximum speed allowed on the highway is 75 MPH. So I did speed, on a straight stretch of 4-lane highway approaching Amsterdam, at around midnight with virtually no other traffic, for about 20 seconds. Somehow I figured I would have a relatively good story in case I would be pulled over, and a nice car to tell that story in. But it is a risk.

Cees Klumper in Amsterdam
'69 white 280 SL automatic

[France]

Cees,

A terrible risk indeed.  We had a case in Karlsruhe recently of a car that was mysteriously "forced" off the road in broad daylight.  It was a very young inexperienced driver with her baby in a small compact.  Both were killed. A few weeks later a Mercedes test driver turned himself in to authorities.  He had been spotted by some witnesses; the only reason he was ever found was that an intense search for a silver new Merc had him scared. I am sure he never saw her accident--my theory is that she saw him coming up on her at 200+ (km/hr) and freaked out, swerving off the highway into the forest after he passed.  He probably blasted through without looking at what happened in his rear-view mirror and was long gone as the tragedy played out.  

I think they gave him 4 years... we should all remember that our driving is only as good as our ability to avoid the worst drivers on the roads.

Having said that, Sarasota's Little Red Truck has been known to hit 90 without a sigh, but that's also speeding by FL's 70 mph standards.  Done clear sunny days on empty highways for short stretches, and only when protected by 10-4 Buddies in trucks!



Trice
1968 280SL US, signal/bl leather, auto

[pierre]

Like J. Huber, I didn't drive my Pagoda over 110 / 120 km/h. The reason is I'm not so sure that everything in this 40 years old car would stand high RPMs and would be OK,and living in the mountains doesn't give the opportunity to make that kind of experiences!
 Otherwise I understand that Cees' SL after the engine rebuilt is in such a good condition that he'd like to reach the top stars at top speed!


[/quote]

[Klaus]

I admit that driving it is a lot of fun (in Germany I reached electronically limited 250 kmh in a 500E), but it is easy to calculate the top speed for your car. You only need the tire size, gear and rear axle ratio. As examples, based on this, a M/T car with 185 tires and i=3.69 should drive 204 kmh at 6500 rpm, and a M/T car with 205/70 tires and i=4.08 should drive 193 kmh at 6500 rpm. A/T cars are about 5 mph less due to hydraulic slippage.

Klaus
1969 280 SL

[graphic66]

I can't drive 55!

[rwmastel]

I pushed my old worn out low compression oil eating car to 140 km/h.  It had more to go, but I didn't trust it to hold together past that!

Rodd
Powell, Ohio, USA
1966 230SL, Euro, Auto, Leather, both  tops
1994 E420

[Bob G ✝︎]

The 1968 280SL is capable of 124 MPH with 2 people aboard. this with the hardtop on so I am told . I managed to take the old car out for some exersize and blow some carbon out on the freeway. At 4000 RPM is about 60MPH is this correct? I am running 185 TR 14 michelin tires. Car did run sweet and when pushed it did respond well.
How come when our cars where built and Ferrari and Porsche could do 130 to 150 MPH Mercedes-Benz choose to limit a six cylinder engine to such a boreing speed that our cars do. Even the BMW 3.0. CS could do 130 MPH. It makes you wonder what was being discussed as important aspects of sales during the run of SLs in the pagoda years and why they did not get faster with each model year the W113 was built.

Bob Geco

[TheEngineer]

Langsam sollste fahren, so daß die Leute uns sehen !

1969 280SL,Signal Red, A/T, P/S, A/C, Both tops.    Ret. engr.

Admin translation: "You should drive slowly so people can see us!"

[Albert-230SL]

Hi Cees and all,

All these speeds were reached in a "non-speed limited" German highway...   :

I have only pushed my 230 SL to 170 KPH (around 106 MPH), soft top down, and it feels really safe and with good handling, but the RPM were high... and it's 40 years old... so I decided to stop there  :| ...

But I drove one of my former cars (a VW Corrado VR6) at 200 KPH (125 MPH) during some KM behind the '64 230 SL (manual, 4 speed) of another member of the Spanish MB Club... so it reachs 125 MPH nowadays!    (Note: his budget in case of engine damage is quite bigger than mine...)

Another member of the Spanish MB Club also pushed his automatic 280 SL (W113) to 200 KPH (Note: same case about budget...  :oops:  )

Regards



Albert de la Torre Chavalera
Barcelona (Catalunya/Spain)
Feb.'64 230 SL Euro 113042-10-002432

[dldubois]

Recently trying to keep my friends in site, I was able to get it up to 100 mph on the highway.   Felt great w/ the top down and the car ran well.  

There's nothing better than having the top down on the highway in these cars.

Dana

1970 280sl White (050) 4spd
Corinth, TX

[n/a]

hello Cees,,,, speed lover,                                                                                                                                                                  I love diving fast , but  my more adult comrads  on this web site, are correct .  How ever , I got the old 250se up to 170KM [106mph]  with more to go, and thats with about  103 campresstoin all around .It previously did not exead 110KM  but driving these cars makes them better .this is before I adjusted the feul injection . careful regards .

alex,66'250se                            new york city

[Ben]

Before I built my engine it felt very trashy at 4,000RPM so I never dared. In the last year I have had it at 6500RPM in top and it was loud but sounded good. My mother had an accident at the other end of the motorway so I pulled a "U" turn and booted it......I didn't care if I got stopped !

Anyway she was okay and so was my licence !!

I have regularly exercised the upper RPM limits of the rev counter, when cruising at 70-MPH and you floor it briefly to go past someone it really picks up and flies !

However I dont speed on a regular basis, if at all, as the car sounds really nice just between 60 & 70 MPH so I'm happy to stay there and keep the points off and the roads safe.

In fact I think the cruising type nature of the 113 is what has me alive today !! [:0]

Regards,
Ben in Ireland.
'64 230SL 4sp.
'03 CLK Kompressor

[Gerhard]

Just last week, not trusting the speedometer, I tested my new mobile navigation system (Ipaq and TomTom). The navigation system shows an accurate speed. According to my speedometer I was doing about 80mph (128kmh) where my nav system says I am doing 163kmh. I know my speedometer does need repairs but for the time I use my nav system just to save money on speeding tickets. 163kmh is also the highest speed done. Highway speedlimits in the netherlands are 100kmh or 120kmh, speeding tickets are VERY expensive.


Gerhard Radstake
1965 230SL

[64sl_robs]

A police officer pulls a guy over for speeding and has the following exchange:

Officer: May I see your driver's license?

Driver: I don't have one. I had it suspended when I got my 5th DUI.

Officer: May I see the owner's card for this vehicle?

Driver: It's not my car. I stole it.

Officer: The car is stolen?

Driver: That's right. But come to think of it, I think I saw the owner's

card in the glove box when I was putting my gun in there.

Officer: There's a gun in the glove box? Driver: Yes sir. That's where I put it after I shot and killed the woman who owns this car and stuffed her in the trunk.

Officer: There's a BODY in the TRUNK?!?!?

Driver: Yes, sir.


Hearing this, the officer immediately called his captain. The car was quickly surrounded by police, and the captain approached the driver to handle the tense situation.


Captain: Sir, can I see your license?

Driver: Sure. Here it is. It was valid.

Captain: Who's car is this?

Driver: It's mine, officer. Here's the owner's card.

The driver owned the car.

Captain: Could you slowly open your glove box so I can see if there's a gun in it?

Driver: Yes, sir, but there's no gun in it.

Sure enough, there was nothing in the glove box.

Captain: Would you mind opening your trunk? I was told you said there's a body in it.

Driver: No problem.

Trunk is opened; no body.

Captain: I don't understand it. The officer who stopped you said you told him you didn't have a license, stole the car, had a gun in the glove box, and that there was a dead body in the trunk.

Driver: Yeah, I'll bet the lying s.o.b. told you I was speeding, too

[ja17]

My Mercedes SCCA Rallycar (powered by M130  280-SL engine) was clocked at 114 mph on a gravel forest road. The lightened Mercedes Rally sedan once saw a top speed of 142 mph on pavement with rpms well over redline. I was following a surprised Honda motorcyclist.

Joe Alexander
Blacklick, Ohio

[Cees Klumper]

The lightened sedan would be the Micro-beast Joe? Would be great to restore it to it's former glory! Maybe I can help you rebuild that engine some time ...

Cees Klumper in Amsterdam
'69 white 280 SL automatic

[Sphe]

As much as I am young and reckless I would still love to see how my 230SL would handle when I punch it....

So far, max speed is 0 mph. As the car still sits being restored in my driveway.

The goal is by the end of the summer to have the car move on it's own power... slowly of course, cause then I'd need to fix the non-existant brakes.

[Peter van Es]

I think it must be a Dutch thing. Although I haven't tested my top speed, I regularly drive my car at cruising speeds of 140-150 km/h. Also, I occasionally "let rip" at a traffic light. Surprises the others who underestimate the speed our cars can achieve, especially when using 1st gear (move automatic lever to 2nd, change gear manually).

At the Winter Trial rally it was subjected to some 2500 kms of non-too-soft driving, brisk acceleration, sharp braking (at one point a lot of smoke was coming off the front discs with a lovely smell of overheated disc pad). In these rallies endurance is everything. These cars are built to endure. I decided mine will never win a concours event... but I will drive it the way it was intended to be driven.

Peter


Check out http://bali.esweb.nl for photographs of classic car events and my 1970 280 SL

[Cees Klumper]

Today I finally remembered to take my navigation system with me to work in the Pagoda, and was able to properly calibrate the speedometer. A few years back I put in a 3.69 rear axle (replacing the original US-spec 4.08) and now the speedo reads slow. Interestingly enough, it seems to vary in the extent to which it is in fact slow; about 14% at moderate (55-70 MPH) speeds, but less at higher speed. Also, the odometer is far less inaccurate it seems, indicating maybe 5% too few kilometers.
Anyway I briefly sprinted to 6,000 RPM's on my way back from work and the speed according to the navigation system was 190 KPH / 118 MPH. It seems like it could have gone just a little faster, but that was enough for me!

Cees Klumper in Amsterdam
'69 white 280 SL automatic

[ja17]

Hello Cees,
I found out that the electonic speed governor on my SLK32 AMG is not working. These cars are supposed to electronically governed at 155 mph. Anyway at 165 mph it was still going strong!

Joe Alexander
Blacklick, Ohio

[tobacco]

Only one high-speed experience to relate:  In late 1971, driving my 280 SL through desert Nevada on then-unregulated Interstate 15, I was goaded by a pesky El Dorado to sprint just above 126 mph and 6,600 rpm.  My foot wasn't to the floor, but the shrieking metallic whine of the M 130 was getting a little scary, and I recall some darting in the front end as my household goods and I were just trying to get to Louisiana.

At the time, I was under the impression (from my selling dealer) that the car's true rev-limit was actually the far end of the tachometer's redbox, at 6,800 rpm.  Who knows if that's what Rudi Uhlenhaut was thinking, but my original shop manual lists 6,500 as the redline and 200 kph (124 mph) as maximum speed for both the G 72 and ZF manual transmissions with US-standard rear axles; and I can vouch for that.  I have no reason to believe a properly rebuilt M 130 in a well-sprung W 113 couldn't match or exceed that today.

But why bother when half the cars in America can move that fast -- and get there faster?  For my money, the sweet spot is about 85 mph, when you get a near-Porsche scream from the engine and gobs of torque to ease past those malicious El Dorados.


Bill Greffin
Chicago
#22375