Parts, and whether re-manufactured with original molds or materials or not, are a simple function of price supply/demand. Whomever is in the supply chain has to make a profit at a reasonable level (read this to mean for a given investment of capital, what's the annual return on capital taken over some period of time compared to the return on some other use of that capital over the same period).
Same applies to time/effort devoted to supply/sales/distribution/inventory costs.
With the simple economic's in mind, consider now the demand side of things --- read quantity of parts one could reasonably be able to sell on an annualized basis.
Some stats on the various W113's...
230SL - 19,831 Produced
- >50% produced in '65 & '66
- 11,726 (59% of Total)Exported (outside Germany)
- 4,752 (24% of Total) Exports to US
- 2,166 7/1/90 still registered in Germany (Kraftfahrbundesamt)
-- 8,105 (41%) Non-Exports Produced
-- 27% of Non-Exports still registered in Germany in July '90
- ~5,300 by inference (~27%) of total production still registered/used somwhere in the world... in 1990... ~25 years since Mean year of production ('65)
250SL - 5,196 Produced
- 99% produced in '67
- 3,808 (73% of Total) Exported (outside Germany)
- 1,761 (34% of Total) Exports to US
- 427 7/1/90 still registered in Germany (Kraftfahrbundesamt)
-- 1,388 Non-Exports Produced
-- 31% of Non-Exports still registered in Germany in July 1990
-- ~1,550 by inference (30%) of total production still registered / used somewhere in the world... in 1990... ~23 years since Mean Year of Production.
280SL - 23,885 Produced
- 37% produced in '70 & '71
- 18,681 (78% of Total) Exported (outside Germany)
- 12,927 (54% of Total) Exports to US
- 2,590 7/1/90 still registered in Germany (Kraftfahrbundesamt)
-- 5,204 Non-Exports Produced
-- 50% of Non-Exports still registered in Germany in July 1990
-- ~12,000 by inference (50%) of total production still registered / used somewhere in the world... in 1990... ~21 years since Mean Year of Production.
That's a total W113 production of 48,912 units.... mean year of production being ~1967.... 39 years ago.
There appears to be a significant drop in residual registered/used vehicles between 21 years since Mean Year of Production, and 25 years since Mean Year of production.
% of Total Production Inferred Registered / Years Since Mean Year of Production
27% / 25
31% / 23
50% / 21
This is an exponential decay with time. The forward projection to 40 years since Mean Year of production would predict <5% of total production still in use.
This is probably somewhat understated, since the projection is based on cars in use after 20 - 25 years since new, and as we all know, the cost of maintaining a car after 25 years vs costs of a new car becomes excessive, & reliability drops off at an increasing rate. Add to this the effects of rust in all but the driest of clime's (Italy, Spain, Near East, South-Western US, Mexico, etc), and the rate of car's leaving the use market after 25 years would increase beyond the exponential predicted by the 20 - 25 years of use.
As an example, say 5% would miraculously still be in use or used as show cars, collector cars, restored or maintained daily drivers, or in some state of preparation for future restoration and use.
That would predict approx. 5% of 49k or ~2,500 remaining units in some state of use/repair/restoration/waiting for restoration. Less than half those would be 230SL's... far fewer yet the 250SL's, and over half being the 280SL's.
Consider that the estimated total was <19k in mid 1990, or 39% of all W113's of which nearly 2/3's (25%) were 280SL's, 3% 250SL's, and 11% 230SL's. If the exponential projection is used to project the percentages to the 40 year mark (since mean year of production), then the 230SL's would have 2.2% (of total production) remaining in use/restored/waiting to restore, the 250SL's having 3% of it's total production, and the 280SL's having 4% of their total production. If the relative proportions remained the same, then at the 40 year mark the 5,000 projected units still in use/restoring/waiting for restoring would translate to roughly 1.5k 280SL's, <250 250SL's, and ~750 230SL's.
So... from a business / economic's point of view, the business of providing classic car parts which are unique to the W113's has to be a very low volume business indeed... and with such low volumes, and decreasing volumes with time, the unit prices have to become very high in any event.... and the higher these prices have to become, the fewer of the W113's will remain in the restorable / restored catagory... accelerating the rate at which the vehicles in the non-restored catagory already will become parts cars.
The only parts that will remain at some reasonable level are those that aren't unique to the W113's... but were also used on the 111's, 108's, etc. of the time.
So... while we may try to get the Classic Car Center to contract to produce more of the rare parts, or even produce any of them, the MB Classic Center is anything but a philanthropic organization.... and must 1st and formost make a competitive roi on whatever capital it has to invest.... just to contract to have any parts produced. This will inevitably diminish with time, so that more marginal uses of capital by non-MB restoration parts business's will spring up over time... quality being more / less also marginal, or less than authentic. There will also be fewer parts producers, as the reduction in volume/demand will force consolidation of whatever parts producer's still exist.
I've also discovered a phenomena recently... a few years ago, new MB beauty rings (230SL's thru 250SL's) were in the $75-$100/unit range (I still have the quote from 5 years ago). In the meantime, they had become unavailable from MB or anybody else... and prices climbed to over US$250 per beauty ring if you could find them. It actually become roughly break-even with having the old ones you could find restored by a premium chrome house.... not just rechroming, but taking out dents, deep scuffs and scratches as well. I recently resigned myself to looking into both options... finding 3 or 4 that were in better shape than mine at some price, or having mine restored. So I inquired with my MB parts source as to the now going rate I'd have to pay for nearly pristine ones --- rechroming perhaps the only extra I'd have to put out myself.... but dent/gouge/scratch free. Lo & behold, MB had them available again though... but at retail $200 ish now... 5 years later over double the price.... albeit competetively with the costs of restoring the existing ones.
Now, in the ensuing 5 years the supply dropped, and the demand accumulated until it was economically worth a competitive roi for MB to invest in another run of these... and I'd guess a reasonably low run number... so that the next time the same parts will be roughly double the price once again... 5 more years hence.... with fewer in the next run than in this one.
Just think like a business does... how to maximize your return on capital... and you'll get the picture on what parts will be produced... how long between run intervals while demand accumulates, and the alternative method of obtaining the parts (machining them to original tolerances?... new castings? new metal bending molds? while MB Classic Car controls it's parts to maximize profit, while still providing enough, often enough to keep the demand rising (so that more of the car's don't end up more readily available as parts cars which decreases the future volume of demand by an even greater rate.
Consider that if MB Classic Center weren't contracting to produce any spare parts at all how many of the W113's would still be on the road or being restored... the price for restoring one at all.
Basically, providing a wish list has to be weighed against the profit MB Classic Center needs to use their capital to satisfy the wish(es). It's a business, after all, isn't it?... and last I heard MB wasn't in the habit of marginalizing their roi on use of capital.
And, for the record, my statistic's on model production volumes, exports, etc. are from Engelin's book Vom Barok zur Pagode. The exponential fit of decay of units available has a 90% correlation coeficient (Rsqr for those with stat background) , so there's a definite exponential decay, though the uncertainties are relatively large with only 3 point from which regression is done.
I won't vouch for the accuracy of the projections to the 40 year since Mean year of production, nor the world-wide inferred numbers (inferred from the German Vehicle Registration office in 1990 (also from Engelin's book))... the 5% number seems somewhat realistic... but even if it's 10% the entire remaining portion of the economic's still applies in spades.
The more the W113's are used, driven, the more will bite the dust and become parts cars at best. We all know this inherently, can bank on it absolutely... the only question being at what rate it occurs.
Longtooth
67 250SL US #113-043-10-002163
'02 SL500 Sport
