Background
Mercedes-Benz had been, understandably, pretty happy with the sales of their Pagoda roofed W113 sports car in the critical North American market. A shade under 20,000 units (roughly 40% of overall production) found homes in the USA ultimately. In a clear demonstration of the idiom “when America sneezes the world catches a cold,” the development of the W113’s all-important successor was hit with some challenging headwinds gusting across the Atlantic.
Hot-shot lawyer, Ralph Nader, released a book in 1965 entitled “Unsafe at Any Speed.” Nader’s exposé book focussed on the appalling safety record of the Chevrolet Corvair. By association, however, it implicated all of the US’s main motor manufacturers for failing to introduce available safety measures, merely on the basis of cost. Nader’s book precipitated a tipping point for the US population’s awareness of automotive safety and is widely credited for ushering in a safety-centric regulatory structure that would endure for a couple of decades. In the wake of this attitudinal pivot many manufacturers would pre-emptively cancel planned convertible models in the expectation that they would prove impossible to build to the impending, draconian regulations or be banned outright. This seismic volte-face very nearly stymied a convertible successor to the W113, too, with the Mercedes board pushing for hardtop-only release. Thanks mostly to some persistent lobbying by then head of R&D, Hans Scherenberg, an open convertible with a detachable hard-top was finally green-lit. The board insisted on a caveat, however - this convertible would need to be safer than any built to date.
And indeed it was, with the R107 launching in 1971 with a windscreen surround that could support the weight of the car in the event of a roll over and ample crumple zones baked in. An unforeseen side effect of Nader’s book was that many other companies had cancelled their upcoming convertibles, effectively gifting this market segment to the SL. The R107 went on to become the company’s second most long-lived model after the G Wagen and sold well over 300,000 units during its 17-year production life, dwarfing the 49,000 achieved by its esteemed predecessor. Of course, the car enjoyed great success in the USA, too, with over 60% of R107’s being sold there.
