MERCEDES-BENZ R107 SL

ELEGANT DESIGN AND A REMARKABLE 18 YEARS IN MARKET DEFINE THE MOST ICONIC SL OF THEM ALL

- ANDY ENRIGHT

Eighteen years. That’s how long the R107 version of the Mercedes-Benz SL was on sale. It was launched into the era of the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon, the topping out of the World Trade Centre and Jackie Stewart winning the F1 title in a Tyrell. By the time production ended we were in a world of Tiananmen Square protests, McDonalds in Moscow and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Everything changed, yet perhaps Mercedes reasoned that in tumultuous times not all change was growth.

Its predecessor, the achingly pretty W113 – or ‘Pagoda’ – series was a relative cranefly in terms of durability, in market for a mere eight years. This Paul Bracq design evolved what we expected from an SL, morphing the design language away from the voluptuous ’50s shapes, combining a more lantern-jawed, slab-sided look for the ’60s with elfin pillars and a delicate, airy stance over its wheels.

The R107 refined that aesthetic, with conceptual body design courtesy of Ferdinand Hellhage and Josef Gallitzendörfer, the latter helping shape the successor R129 car credited largely to Bruno Sacco. Sketches show the base silhouette, but the personality and details of the R107 were very much the work of Friedrich Geiger’s team at the MB studio in Sindelfingen.

The subtlety of the compound curves in what was initially a workmanlike basic proposal, the near-perfect judgment of body brightwork and the creation of not only a short-wheelbase convertible but also a longer wheelbase 2+2 coupe – the C107 SLC – was a triumph for Geiger, a notoriously difficult perfectionist whose resume also included icons like the 300SL Gullwing, to finally sign off.