Background
Any car that can trace its heritage to the Mercedes 300SL Gullwing is an instant classic – and that’s the lineage this SL500 belongs to. Quite why Merc decided to switch the order of the letters and numbers is probably a question best asked of a spotty teenager in their marketing department, but the SL is still there – it stands for Super Light. (Mercedes used Sport Leicht and Super Leicht interchangeably until 2017, when a chance discovery in its corporate archive clarified the abbreviation stood for the latter.)
After the end of Second World War, Mercedes along with the rest of the German car industry, was in tatters. The company barely existed and the market for its cars was very limited. But even in those circumstances maverick engineers from Stuttgart knew that racing was the way to attract buyers and present the company’s considerable know-how in the best possible light. So, in the early 1950s, the W198 300SL was born.
It was a pure racing car with highly tuned and fuel-injected 3-litre straight six engine, and a host of advanced technical features never seen before on any racing or road going vehicle. As expected, it was very successful on race tracks and in SLR form in famous races such as the Targa Florio, Mille Miglia and Le Mans 24 Hours. Mercedes didn’t plan a production model, but Max Hoffman, the Mercedes importer for the USA, was very persistent and insisted the car could be a sales hit if offered as a road going version. The company was reluctant, but in 1954 it introduced the Mercedes 300SL Gullwing.
This was a road-going racing car with the same engine and technology as its track-going cousins. Unique gullwing doors which opened like the wings of a bird were necessary because the space frame chassis left no room for ordinary doors. The 3-liter straight six engine produced 225bhp, a big number for the day. The engine had a mechanical fuel injection system which was very advanced at the time. Of course, the car was very fast and expensive making it very prestigious, but still it sold well and in just a few years 1400 were made, with 80% of the production being sold through Max Hoffman dealerships in America.
The Mercedes SL continued in various forms over the following decades, moving from the Gullwing to the W113 Pagoda cars from 1963, through the R107 from 1971 to 1989, when the R129 took over.
The R129 would survive until 2002, but by 1996 a replacement was well underway. The R230 remained an accomplished grand tourer like SLs before it, but unlike the 113, 107 and 129, this SL was poaching buyers of established sports cars. It’s not that the R230 SL moved away from the luxury and convenience of previous generations, it’s just that it offered luxury and convenience while keeping up with a Porsche 911 on properly twisty roads.
Not only was its quad headlight design striking to look at, but a lot had changed in technical terms when compared with its R129 predecessor – a car that had remained in production for 12 years. The R230 was the first SL with a fully retractable metal roof instead of the fabric folding top usually found on roadsters. This could transform the open car into a fully-fledged closed coupé in a matter of seconds. There were also more advanced electronics including advanced ABC (Active Body Control), which allowed the car to lean into corners, flattening itself to the road for optimum grip. Just like its predecessors, the R230 SL set a new benchmark in automotive engineering.
Merc decided the launch model should make a statement, so the first offering was not an entry-level model, but the SL500 with 306bhp. In the autumn of the same year, customers were able to order an even more potent SL in the form of a supercharged SL 55 AMG with a whopping 476bhp.
Nobody really mourned the loss of the old manually adjustable fabric seats: leather as standard was perfect for a luxury roadster. Also new were the electronic systems, which were given their own unique names in typical Mercedes fashion. Its premium nature even stretch to the car’s manual, something that was then still bound as a hardcover book. New SL owners could then familiarise themselves with the modern DISTRONIC, TELEAID, and COMMAND systems.
A multifunction steering wheel – which was also electrically adjustable – was part of the standard specification, as was the memory data for the seat adjustment stored in its key. The automatic climate control was also standard on the R230.
The design was all-new. While the R230’s predecessor was classically designed, Bruno Sacco liked clear timeless lines. This new SL was a child of its time. Curved, slippery lines and those aforementioned headlights. While thoroughly modern, there was a throwback to Mercedes heritage with a vent located in the front wings, just like the 300SL Gullwing.
Another technical innovation was introduced in the R230 – Sensotronic Brake Control (SBC) meant there was no mechanical connection between the brake pedal and the brake master cylinder; instead the link was electronic. In conjunction with the fully electronic ESP and Active Body Control – still known to many from the moose test of the first generation A-Class – this roadster advanced driving dynamics and safety in its day. With the new systems fitted to the R230 SL, Mercedes-Benz once again became the pioneer of new technology that all other manufacturers would gradually adopt.
All 230s have automatic transmissions, just like Mercs of old, but the R230 could be had with the new 7G-Tronic transmission, which transferred the power to the rear axle like a turbine without any noticeable shifts. It had the additional benefit of delivering lower fuel consumption.
The R230 SL remained on production until 2011, when in another break from Mercedes tradition, the company chose the perfectly logical name of R231 for its successor. The new car was familiar looking and shared a lot with the R230, but some enthusiasts think the design had become slightly compromised, and it’s the R230 that remains the benchmark for a modern, classic Mercedes sports car.
