Mercedes-Benz SL 320

Over 30 years ago, in March 1989, the new SL caused a sensation at the Geneva Motor Show. The R129 series combined a timeless design with sporty performance and luxury. The open-top sports car was a success and became the worthy successor to the 107 series, which had been around for 18 years by then.

The car has won several awards for its design and Bruno Sacco, the mastermind behind the clear lines of the R129, is happy to accept the prizes. The Benz wears a simple, clearly defined and accentuated dress and achieves a drag coefficient of 0.32 with its wedge shape and fitted hardtop - pretty decent for a luxury roadster.

Tinkering with the successor to the 107 began in the mid-1970s and continued while the W124 and W126 series went into production. The reasons for the long development phase included the open-top concept, which struggled with the safety regulations in the event of a rollover, and the plan to build a coupé version in parallel, which was never realized.

The solution was a world first: an automatic roll bar. After just 0.3 seconds, the pre-tensioned spring-damper unit automatically raised the bar in critical driving situations. Just as innovative were the electrically adjustable integral seats with belt tensioners and belt height and headrest adjustment, the wind deflector and, of course, the fully automatic fabric soft top, in which the control unit monitors the processes with 17 limit switches, among other things.

As in the long-running advertising program, there is still more to come: ADS. The modern suspension was the first to feature the Adaptive Damping System. Coupled with automatic level control, the ADS automatically adjusts the damping to the current driving conditions almost without delay.

People loved the innovative car and production ran at full speed right from the start until it ended in 2001 after several model modifications. In twelve years of production, 204,940 vehicles were produced and the best-selling model, with almost 80,000 units, was the 500 SL / SL 500 with a four-valve engine.