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The W113 Mercedes-Benz Pagoda is one of those cars you can buy an example for $40,000 all the way up to $240,000 and no one would bat an eye at you for doing so. Condition and spec can vary widely, so naturally prices do as well. Outside of the wheel choices, they all have the same general look and the only major factor in determining price is the engine choice. You can chose between the 230, 250, or 280 spec with generally the 280 and manuals demanding the greatest dollar amount. Are the other two choices bad? Not at all. You aren’t exactly competing in vintage road racing in a Pagoda, so while the upgraded power from the 280 is surely nice, the main goal of this car is to cruise and look good. So if a 230SL came up for sale for a reasonable price with the right transmission, like we have today, would you say no?
For all the Mercedes-Benz Pagodas I’ve ever taken a look at, for some reason I’ve never come across the California Coupe. What is the California Coupe? It is a 250SL or 280SL with a folding rear seat in the place of where the soft top would normally be with the hardtop or a tonneau cover as your option to cover the cabin. Comfortable? No. Safe? Even less so. Still, a relatively rare configuration as only around 10% of Pagodas were sold as California Coupes. You can probably guess where the majority of these cars were allocated when new and where you still find them for sale. However, just because these are relatively rare, doesn’t make them all that desirable even with the Pagoda market still being relatively strong. This example up for sale in, you guessed it, California, needs some help.
Around five years ago the values of the W113 Mercedes-Benz Padoga spiked pretty hard and kept climbing year after year. I totally get it because these roadsters are as classic as it gets and will never go out of style. The price for a really nice 280SL hovers around that $100,000 mark and can reach almost $260,000 for a perfect example while the lesser 230SL and 250SL can be had for a much more reasonable $50,000 if you so chose. This leads me to today’s car, a 1970 280SL up for sale in New Hampshire. This Pagoda is equipped not only with the rare factory air conditioning, but a 4-speed manual transmission. While all that is nice, why I really wanted to look at this 280SL is the price. No, it is not extremely high, but actually quite the opposite.
If I had a dollar for every time I see the terms ”like-new”, ”showroom condition” or even worse, ”restored” when looking at a used car ad, I’d have a lot more cars. The overwhelming majority of the time these terms don’t apply to the car listed for sale and are just used by overzealous sellers just trying to drum up interest. I fight every urge to send them a sarcastic message saying that I didn’t know Mercedes sold new cars on the showroom floor with cracked dashes and stains on the carpets, but I resist. Either way, it ruins the term in my eyes because of how loosely it gets tossed around. Today, one of those cars actually deserves all those marketing terms because it is actually true. This 1970 Mercedes-Benz 280SL for sale in Texas was restored, is like-new and is certainly in showroom condition. However, if you want to own this car, I hope your net worth is in seven-figures. It is that expensive.
It has been a little while since I’ve looked at a Mercedes-Benz Pagoda, so now is a good a time as any to jump back in and check one of these out. Normally, I feature the top of the range 280SL because those are usually in the nicest condition, are optioned the fullest and are painted in the coolest colors. Today, I actually want to look at the one of the early Pagodas in the 230SL. This 1966 up for sale in Los Angeles is an extremely low mileage example with just a little over 19,000 and from the looks of it, has been maintained rather well.
