1963, the first year of the Mercedes Benz 230SL, was my eighteenth year. My most impressionable years had been formed by big; BIG tailfins and my personality solidified by quad headlights, naugahyde rolled and pleated bench seats, floor shifters and rock-and-roll music. But by 1963, the tailfins were gone. Life was still good, partly due to the continued life of quad headlights and vinyl interiors color coordinated with two and even three tone paint jobs. Friday and Saturday nights were spent cruising from the A&W Root Beer joint at one end of town to the Dairy Queen at the other end of town, with short but lakes-pipes-noisy loops around a couple of other hamburger joints in between. The late teenage girls in shorts serving shakes on roller skates and dancing to rock-and-roll helped to make life good in the American Mid-west.
But then I saw a photograph of a 230SL, soon to be called the “Pagoda”. My 1940 In-line 6-cylinder Chevy pickup with its split-manifold and dual lakes pipes completely lost its glow.
High School gave way to college, college to university, university to industry. The pickup truck became a sedan. Cruising gave way to grocery shopping and occasionally dining out. One of the girls in shorts grew up and married me. But I never forgot the Pagoda. Even if it was more of a girly car than muscle car, it didn’t matter. I still wanted one – I NEEDED ONE!
February 1989, Detroit suburbs, a hotel reception room where a banquet is being held for auto industry suppliers. I’m now a 44 year-old relatively successful engineering executive in the U.S. auto industry. I spot a supplier from North Carolina that I’ve not seen for several years, so I wander over to say hello. A few niceties and discussions of times past, then I remember that a few years ago, he bought a ’67 230SL that one of his employees had imported from Italy.
“Do you still have that Mercedes?” I ask. “Yeah, do you want to buy it?” he replies. My heart starts skipping beats and I manage to get out, “What would you want for it?” He grabs a price out of the air and I ask, “When would be a good time for me to come down to North Carolina to see it?”
“How about next week?” he says.
I manage to say, without passing out, “OK, I’ll fly down on a one-way ticket, you pick me up at the airport and I’ll look it over. If I like it, I’ll give you a certified check and drive it back. If I don’t, you can drive me back to the airport.”
Well, I flew down, he picked me up in the Pagoda, I drove it, I looked it over, I gave him the check, His wife gave me a picnic basket full of food and books-on-tape, he took a photo of his wife and me beside the car, and I drove it back to Michigan, stopping only for gasoline. The cable to the heater core was broken and I almost froze while driving all night. I didn’t even know enough to pop the grommet and flip the heater core control valve lever with my finger.
I’ve had it for twenty-three years and am just now deep into its first, but thorough, restoration.
Even ratty, it was more pleasant to drive than my other cars. I can’t wait to get it back together.
Tom Kizer
