Paraphernalia included w/ my Pagoda (tourist delivery + more . . .)

[Jack the Knife]

Pagoda fellows,

As my interest has renewed in my car now that it's at my house again and some of my other projects have ended, I've gone about organizing all the material that came with my car, some of which might be of great interest to you all. I intend to have it placed in a sort of scrapbook, in case anyone has any suggestions for high quality binding material.

The gentleman who purchased my car, Maurice Winkler, founded Winkler Manufacturing in Lebanon, Ind., which made heating equipment from its founding in '37 to its merger with Stewart-Warner Corp. in 1955. During WWII, it produced armaments, like many companies of its sort. Prior to all that, he worked for Schwitzer-Cummins, which made coal strokers, furnaces, blowers, and so on. The grille badges in the attached photographs were his, or at least I'm inferring that by his obituary -- like many men of his generation, he was involved in various fraternal organizations. And he liked Mercedes. Prior to purchasing his Pagoda through DB's Tourist Delivery Program, he had a 190SL, remnants of which are mixed in with my Pagoda-related things.

As an aside, let's talk about Louis Schwitzer, an Austrian-American engineer who patented improvements in automotive cooling equipment as well as the turbocharger. He also liked to race, having won the first event at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1909, as a driver, in a Stoddard-Dayton. There is a very interesting article about him here: https://www.hemmings.com/stories/louis-schwitzer/

But back to Mr. Winkler. I was told by his grandson, from whom I purchased the car via auction in Nov. '22, that the 190SL he had totally rotted away from his commutes between Indiana and Chicago, and I suppose the car hadn't really satisfied him which is why he submitted an order for a 230SL ten months into the car's production, in April of '64, hence why my car is a '64 despite being actually made in early '65.

First, attached is a postcard packet for DB's cars of the later 50s. I'm surprised at the low compression ratio of the 300SL, I didn't know that. Anyway, I love this piece, since postcrossing is another major hobby of mine.

[Jack the Knife]

Attached is an overview of the things included. If anyone wants to see closeups of anything in particular, just ask.

Amongst the Tourist Delivery items:
- "Driving in Europe"
- Tourist Price List
- Ocean Freight Rates from Northsea Ports
- "A Vacation in Europe in your own Mercedes-Benz"
- An overview of the factory in Sindelfingen and how to get there from nearby transit hubs
- Two shipping guides
- A Lufthansa timetable, effective January 2, 1965

There's also some correspondence to the Mercedes-Benz Club of America regional president. By the looks of it, they traveled to Europe together and each picked up a car. There's also a blank application to the MBCCA from the period, a copy of "The American Mercedes" dating to the 190SL era, the tin plate used during service, two brochures, and an authorized dealer map for the US and Canada.

The bigger overview contains:
- two grille badges
- an under-hood emergency light designed for the plug in the firewall
- a guide to service providers in Germany and Europe generally
- owner's manual (a second copy on my nightstand for pleasure reading)
- options catalog
- little broom for, I assume, the soft-top
- period chrome flashlight
- data card
- service bulletins from 1965-1968 or so bound in the vinyl folder
- three workshop manuals
- directory of authorized USA MBZ dealers
- my favorite brochure, depicting a very modern house and a 230SL
- two sets of keys, not sure about the plastic-headed ones, might be 190SL?
- two parts catalogs
- two service booklets
- a full-color booklet of glossy photos of the 230SL, including the engine bay, which I will include in another posting
- the original service booklet complete with services up through the later 70s (Mr. Winkler passed in '81, and I believe he stopped driving the car around '79)

[Jack the Knife]

Attached you'll see:
- close-up of the data card
- photo of the Jacksonville Parts Depot in the service bulletin
- tourist purchase order

Some time in the middle 1970s, my grandfather had a SWB 600 he got somehow (he was better-off than average but not that well-off... but a big fan of Mercedes cars from the 60s until the early-90s, when he quit driving). The engine went, and he was referred to Jacksonville to fix the car. They told him to ship it up there for basically a dissection. He replaced the engine with some domestic make, drove it a year or two longer, and traded it for some piece of heavy equipment I can't recall. I think he actually did well on that trade. Anyway, it amused me to see the parts depot in there. Nice, solid, modern building.

I'm proud to have that purchase order. Amusingly, they misspelled Stuttgart as Stuggart.

[Jack the Knife]

Intermixed there was a big brochure for a 600, for some reason.

Also an old box for a Mann fuel filter.

[Jack the Knife]

Attached you'll see:

- close-up of the original service booklet, including various destinations in Europe... Nurnberg (DE), Alicante (ES), Lausanne (FR), and then in Indianapolis. The services peter out around '77, with mileage within 5k of the current odometer reading (around 82k).
- service paperwork from World Wide Motors in '66, which would be service E in the book
- one of my favorite pieces, a bunch of arithmetic on the back of a page in the brochure... figuring the ultimate costs for the car with different options. It seems he nixed an auto trans and the roof owing to costs.
- great photo of the engine bay, with some different finishes than what I'm used to seeing posted on here... namely, the cadmium or zinc plating is much duller, the firewall pad is much thicker and not textured, there are four rubber stops for the hood above the firewall (not three as some say is correct), no decal on the coolant overflow reservoir, and a few other minor things.

[BobH]

Some really interesting stuff, as you say, the budget figures i'm sure are what a lot of us have done in the past when costing a new car, add this, deduct that, and then decide what you can actually afford

The engine bay picture is from the original 1963 sales leaflet, may even have been pre-production, hence some of the finishes and fittings may not have made it into the first cars produced

https://oudemercedesbrochures.nl/W113_230SL_Engels0863.html

[Jack the Knife]

After M. W. Sr. died, M.W. Jr. inherited the car and took generally very good care of it. He was head of international sales for Stewart-Warner Alimits Corporation until his retirement in '95. Incidentally, my father tells me he used to buy a lot from SW at that time, as they made great gauges used in the mining industry, in which my family has been involved in Florida since the 60s. The car really wasn't driven very much between '81 and '22, except to teach kids and grandkids how to drive a stick, or so M.W. III told me. Some work was done in preparation for a sale, and III said he "truly isn't a car guy at all", so he couldn't give me much information about it, except that his father and especially his grandfather loved it very much.

To briefly summarize its history since '81, all I can see is that it was probably resprayed, some elements of the engine bay were painted silver in-situ, the radio dash plate was cut for probably a cassette head unit at some point and then returned to a single-DIN radio in the early-00s (whereupon speakers were placed in the kickboards and rear parcel shelf), the delete plate was mounted on the glovebox, very undersized tires were mounted on it to get it to the auction (I suppose this is because the shock pads were worn out and the car was sitting a bit low for stock tires), and that was that. A big dent or two in the bumper came about when M.W. Jr. tried to keep driving it here and there into his 80s (he passed in '16), or so III tells me, until he gave up trying.

And since I've had it, I have tried to improve some things and restore others, with the car having been practically undriven since buying (except for shakedown drives after doing this-or-that). A lot of the maintenance items I think are just typical of a car that has sat for a while:
- new shifter bushings
- new shock pads
- stainless exhaust (Quicksilver)
- 123 Ignition (old system stored away)
- removal of interior tar insulation and replacement with something dynamat-like
- Zimber wheel
- new radio mounting plate
- new glovebox door
- new carpets
- new upholstery entirely
- new parcel shelves
- coco mats
- LED lights
- repair/refurbishment of dash clock
- Mechatronik KW shocks
- Mechatronik progressive springs
- 27.5mm sway bar
- proper tires (Vredestein Sprint Classic)
- replacement of lots of interior fasteners with proper chrome-plated ones
- new dash instrument gaskets
- new dash instrument rubber covers
- new firewall pad (removing this since I installed it so badly)
- fairly low mile sedan axle w/ disc brakes and limited slip differential
- replated chrome on trunk handle and rear view mirror

And now I work on detailing the engine bay, which is including:
- replacement of all rubber and hoses (and gosh am I glad I'm doing this... braided fuel line to pump disintegrated when I touched it, air intake corrugated hose had many holes in it on the bottom, lots of totally original hoses and the like in there...)
- plating of linkages and injector lines in cadmium
- aesthetic refurbishment of valve cover and air intake manifold
- cleaning a whole lot of crud
- installing contemporary starter motor (maybe, it's here in reserve)
- performing compression and leakdown tests when all is back together to get things running as they should

When everything is well and refurbished, it'll be time for my own trips. This car hasn't been on a proper vacation in a long time. And I've been itching to return to Japan. Until then...

Some really interesting stuff, as you say, the budget figures i'm sure are what a lot of us have done in the past when costing a new car, add this, deduct that, and then decide what you can actually afford

The engine bay picture is from the original 1963 sales leaflet, may even have been pre-production, hence some of the finishes and fittings may not have made it into the first cars produced

https://oudemercedesbrochures.nl/W113_230SL_Engels0863.html

Ah yes that's the one. Gosh, I sure love the photo of the couple in the red car.

You know, I've had some trouble with the insulation pad, as I think it's basically useless junk that were there just to hide spot welds and such in the engine bay. The original stuff may have been good (perhaps contained asbestos, of course), but the reproduction stuff will let the heat of a hair dryer through. The thicker material there most certainly contains asbestos. A friend is giving me a very old deadstock pad which he says is that material, but I'll update the engine detail thread with that.

[Jack the Knife]

Oh! As an aside, Snyder Auto Service in Indianapolis was bought out by World Wide Motors which became Mercedes-Benz of Indianapolis. They sold the Meridian Avenue location a few years ago and it became Silver Star Service (nice domain name... indymb), which seems to be a decent independent Mercedes mechanic from where I'm sitting just over one thousand miles away, but who's to say. Very rarely have I seen a mechanic or dealer of the same marque persist in the same spot for so long. Most of the old MBZ dealers in Florida long since moved out of wherever they were. Though some of the original dealer buildings are still around as other things, often very nice things... like the Studebaker-Packard and later Mercedes showroom that had been on Worth Avenue in Palm Beach, today where Maus and Hoffman is located. Stylish place to buy a car!

[rwmastel]

Jack,

That's an incredible collection of materials!

I noticed your car has 219 leather.   I have that also, and I think it's an uncommon color.  Is the original material still in your car?  Mine needs the factory leather replaced and in my previous searches (years ago) I couldn't find any source for a proper match.  It's a project for another year as this winter is dedicated to an engine rebuild, but would be interested in learning from your experiences if you did or will replace with correct material.  Thanks.

[Jack the Knife]

Jack,

That's an incredible collection of materials!

I noticed your car has 219 leather.   I have that also, and I think it's an uncommon color.  Is the original material still in your car?  Mine needs the factory leather replaced and in my previous searches (years ago) I couldn't find any source for a proper match.  It's a project for another year as this winter is dedicated to an engine rebuild, but would be interested in learning from your experiences if you did or will replace with correct material.  Thanks.

I think it is an uncommon color and one that's certainly uncommon to get 'right'. I think I made an upholstery thread on here last year some time when I was redoing it, and went a bit nuts with collecting samples of what I thought was 'right'. It was tough to compare it to what was already in the car because age and cleaning materials and what not certainly affected the color and texture of things over the years, but I found KHM's cognac to be the best of the few I collected. The top picks were two from Hydes, one from Aeristo, and one from KHM. I thought KHM's "39C2" "Classic Roser-copy" leather to be the best. I'm happy to send my samples to you, if you'd like them. I also like the pebbled texture of the KHM variety and believe it will wear nicer. You can see some of them here: https://www.sl113.org/forums/index.php?topic=36244.msg264889#msg264889

[rwmastel]

IYou can see some of them here: https://www.sl113.org/forums/index.php?topic=36244.msg264889#msg264889

Thanks!  No need to send samples, unless you don't want them back.  It may be 3 or 5 years before I do my interior.

[zoegrlh]

Have you tried GAHH samples for Cognac 8006? I used them years ago for my Rot 3000 (Dark Red).  Good quality leather, good service, and a good match.

[Jack the Knife]

Thanks!  No need to send samples, unless you don't want them back.  It may be 3 or 5 years before I do my interior.

Should you want them, they're here, though these suppliers surely have no issues sending you as many samples as you'd ever care to have!

Have you tried GAHH samples for Cognac 8006? I used them years ago for my Rot 3000 (Dark Red).  Good quality leather, good service, and a good match.

Normally I'd have no problems using any of the major suppliers like GAHH and whatnot, but for cognac, it's tough. There's cognac, and there's cognac...  One perceives it as brown but it's really reddish and yellow. The "base" layer is yellow, which is mostly in the little "valleys" in the leather grain. The upper layer is the reddish color. Put together, your eyes perceive that really rich brown that has a lot of depth. When I was doing my interior, I found a thread (https://www.sl113.org/forums/index.php?topic=30561.0) where a guy named Aaron h (Haussman IIRC) opines on this leather... I reached out to him and we discussed all the nuances of the different manufacturers, he advised for my purposes to just go with KHM since they get pretty darn close and the classic center uses them (their "old timer" variety). They aren't perfect, he actually likes Aeristo for most things, but like a lot of parts of our cars or any car (or a house or a boat or whatever it is you're restoring) finding the 100% original is pretty tough since production methods change or regulation and economic factors force changes...

And I only mention all that because I got a quote from GAHH and I think I recall it being more expensive (before cutting/sewing!) than KHM and Hydes. I believe they get their material from Hydes, anyway.