Evolution

[Pawel66]

I think this is pretty good.
https://www.facebook.com/hamit.kundak.classic.cars/videos/1238246476201786

[thelews]

No 190 SL?  I think it's fairer to say the 113 was derived from the 190 SL (121) rather than the 300 SL in the sense that the 190 was the first boulevard cruiser and all the following generations of the SLs have also been since.  I would say the SLR is more a derivation of the 300 SL.  The boulevard cruiser SL concept was more marketable.

[MikeSimon]

I agree. The W113 was more of a successor to the 190SL. Back when I was a kid, they were both perceived as "ladies' cars". Actually, an infamous Frankfurt prostitute who was murdered (and the case was never solved) had a 190SL. White over red. My car was originally bought by a Frankfurt fur dealer as a Christmas present for his wife. I don't think the 300SL really had a successor. The car was originally designed as a racer

[Pawel66]

Yes, it also stroke me 190SL was not there (difficult to show it overtaking the 300SL maybe...) . 300SL was first, followed by 190SL, but the 190SL was the first for the concept.

My 190SL was bought by an owner of the furniture factory - judging form the colours also must have been a gift for his wife or daughter.

Do you happen to remember the name of that infamous famous prostitute? I would try to dig into that story a bit...

[MikeSimon]

Her name was Rosemarie Nitribitt (spelling of last name may be wrong)

[Pawel66]

Thanks!

[MikeSimon]

The memory is the first to go....I thought it was white. But maybe I remember pictures of the car after it was repainted silver and it stuck as white in my memory.
In any case, there is an intriguing story about the car. If you can find it and read German, worth looking at. Even Karl Lagerfeld pops up...

[JN]

Great commercial!
I also like the 107 in yellow!

JN

[Shvegel]

For the last couple years I have noticed Mercedes trying to get women involved in collecting classic Mercedes cars.  The woman in the yellow 107 was a nice touch.

[Pawel66]

This is in-line with their overall marketing strategy - She's Mercedes...

[lowpad]

The W113 was a direct result of the decision not to put a more powerful or larger engine into the 190SL to compensate for its lackluster performance.  Upgrading the 190 would have meant spending capital to perpetuate its older manufacturing process at a time when the all-new W111 series was coming into production.  So the logical choice was to instead develop a derivative of the W111.  This is well documented in the Engelen book.  An inspired decision!

There was some work done by Paul Bracq and Giorgio Battistella on a potential 300SL successor called the SLX, but it never passed the full-size wooden mockup stage and was eventually succeeded by the C111 research vehicle.  I had a chance to see this car at the magnificent Mercedes display at Essen in 2018 and it's quite a striking design.

Interesting that there were several films, musicals and plays about the Nitribitt story.  The 1958 film Rosemary was made from a novel about her life and starred none other than Gert Fröbe of Goldfinger fame.  The Truth About Rosemarie / She Walks by Night was released the following year, with British actress Belinda Lee in the lead dubbed in German. 

[zak]

Great interesting story.
Nice work Pawel.
Rosemary was a babe.
I wonder what her fee was back in the late 50's ?

jz

[Pawel66]

As lowpad says, this lady was and is quite famous and so is her car. There are dioramas made based on the picture I attached. I saw at least 5 cars claimed to be her cars, various 190SL production years and colours.

In the movie they had, I think, the correct production year (no rear bumper guards, small rear lights, early trunk lid arrangement, early inner door handles) but a different body colour.

[DaveB]

I wonder what her fee was back in the late 50's ?
jz

if you have to ask, you can't afford

[MikeSimon]

One of my pet peeves is finding wrong facts in movies that follow a historical line or subject. The last "big one" was "Ford vs Ferrari" which has a nice story-line but also a lot of wrong facts.
The first pictures of Pawel's post about "Rosemarie" shows her in a car that has the wrong license plate. I don't know if even the type of plate is correct for that time - I doubt it - but the plate numbers are definitely incorrect. As she lived in Frankfurt, her plate would have started with F - . The picture shows E- which is "Essen".
BTW, she bought her 190SL at the same place, my 280SL was delivered from: "Niederlassung Frankfurt".

[Pawel66]

Ok, but it seemed to me this was a picture from her real life... I mean the first picture, the one, with the dog. The plate starts with H that may stand for, e.g. Hamburg. Black plates - no idea if correct for Germany at that time.

And yes, the picture from the movie starts with an E. Th colour of the car is different. I think those days the movie making was not as strict to 100% correct props as it may be today. And the correctness of the facts - well, sometimes it has to be dramatized so that people want to watch it. We have documentaries if we strive for facts.

Not defending anything, just thinking aloud.

[MikeSimon]

I was talking about the movie picture. The photo with the black car is actually her. After the war, we used to have plates that were tied to the allied military zones. Don't know, if the black plate is still one of these.