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One of the first photos before restoration

A 1965 Mercedes-Benz 230 SL alias Pagoda.

I have bought this car in the United States in March 2005. It is a model of the year 1965. According to the Data-Card this particular car was originally delivered to a dealer in Canada. Manufactured in June, it was eventually sold in October 1965. I do not know much about the history of the car. I am sure it changed hands several times and it was "restored" at least once in his past life. The quality of the restoration was not exceptional, though.

The car eventually ended up in Connecticut at a Mercedes enthusiast called Drew. I was contacted by Drew through the "Pagoda SL forum", a very lively discussion board which can be found at: www.sl113.org/forums/ after I expressed there my intention to buy a Pagoda in the USA.

Loading the car in Bremerhaven

It took a while till we managed to dispatch the car from the New Jersey harbor and thus the car spent its 40th birthday somewhere in the shipping company's warehouse.

In July it arrived to one of Europe's biggest harbor in Bremerhaven, Germany. Me and my brother rented a trailer and went to pick it up. Then we brought it to its new home in Prague.

Containers in the harbor

The trip from Prague to Bremerhaven is not short, it is some 700 kilometers. And one cannot drive very fast with the trailer. That's why we set out at night.

The harbor was a big surprise for us. There are incredibly vast places full with goods, everywhere millions of containers, trucks, cranes... Those transoceanic ships are outrageous monsters. You can see infinite fields of cars, often sorted by colors like some kind of flower carpet. Those cars are either freshly imported from Japan, Korea or America or on the contrary they are european cars ready to see their future american customers. For a landlocked European like us two Czechs this is an astonishing spectacle.

Train full with cars

A feel of insignificancy overwhelmed me. We two come this long way from Prague to pick up one single little pagoda and here in the hangars and parking fields stand thousands or even maybe hundreds of thousands of new and old cars worth much more than our relatively rare and valued oldtimer Mercedes 230 SL. The guys here are simply wholesalers operating in bulks.

All the paperwork and loading took a bit longer than we expected and we arrived back to Prague late in the night.

I have parked the car in the garage and the very next day went to inspect it and get familiar with it.

Drew, the previous owner, had himself another pagoda, the 280 SL. He decided to part with the 230 SL because the car was in a need of new paint and bodywork which meant a price a bit higher than the cost of the actual car. Labor in the USA is simply expensive.

My advantage is that I can have the job done here in the Czech Republic for less money and in a better quality.

The car came with a load of new spare parts especially for the body. The car needs especially some bodywork, new paint and upholstery (I got new carpets as a bonus too). There is also a worn synchro on the second gear. That was all I expected. I hope I am not going to be unpleasantly surprised...

These are the photographs I got from the previous owner. This is actually the way the car looked a couple of years ago.

The car got eventually the european headlamps. That's good, I personally dislike the sealed beams.

Those headrests unfortunately did not come with the car, the PO sold them separately before I got the car. They are not original for the car, they were optional only for the 280 SL. The 230 SLs were always delivered without them.

The connoisseurs among you may notice the rear view mirrors which are also not original for a 230 SL. This shape was used at the 280 SL. And the same is for the wheel covers.

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