When a vehicle nameplate sticks around for a long time, its evolution can be used to trace design trends throughout the decades, especially when it’s a car favoured by the image-first jet set of its day. The Mercedes-Benz SL celebrates its 70th birthday in 2024, and while the basic GT formula – big, silky, front-mounted engines and generally, two-seat roadster bodies – has remained consistent, each generation has epitomised the distinct aesthetic of its respective era.
The original 300SL ‘Gullwing’ and its roadster sibling exude early modernist opulence like few other cars, their sculpted forms and chrome embellishments some of the last vestiges of art deco glitz in European machinery. Their successor, the 1960s’ W113 ‘Pagoda’, is perhaps the ultimate automotive exercise in restrained mid-century elegance. The R107 that carried the SL name through the bulk of the ’70s and ’80s is brutalism done right, a sort of wheeled counterpart to the likes of the Barbican Estate.
The pebble-smooth R230 of the 2000s still looks as fresh and uncluttered now as it did 20 years ago, perfectly at home outside the glassy, high-tech edifices of its era. Then, the two most recent generations start to cut a more aggressive figure, following an industry-wide shift back towards more exaggerated shapes and sweeping, expressive design statements.
Then, of course, there was the ’90s, a decade whose product design was defined by minimal fuss, robust solidity, and a voracious appetite for technological progress. You can see it in so many of the decade’s iconic products – the first iMac, Motorola’s pagers, Patek Philippe’s Aquanaut – and the R129 Mercedes-Benz SL.
The R129’s production actually extends past either end of the ’90s – it was introduced in 1989 and discontinued in 2002 – but few other cars sum up the last decade of the second millennium so well. It was styled by Bruno Sacco, a man responsible for visually guiding Mercedes through much of the latter part of the 20th century, during arguably the last stand for the company’s reputation as a bastion of rock-solid Germanic engineering.
At first glance, it seems that Sacco styled the R129 with a ruler and a protractor, but look closer and there are smooth edges, the car serving as the perfect bridge between the uber-angular ’80s and rounded-off shapes of the ’00s. Like the era’s consumer tech, it rejects unnecessary embellishment, with precious few concessions to non-functional flourishes.
The R129 was also the technological powerhouse you’d expect from Mercedes during this progress-hungry decade. Innovations included an automatically deployable roll bar and an optional early form of Merc’s Adaptive Damping System. The interior had power-operated everything, even including the rear-view mirror on early cars.
The fact that ’90s nostalgia currently runs as high as ever means that the R129 SL is, quite rightly, revered as an icon of its time, and has earned a status as an appreciating modern classic. This brings us neatly onto this 500SL. The seemingly boundless enthusiasm for this era of cars has led to some picture-perfect builds across the spectrum. We caught this one under the lights of an autumn Strassenkultur evening at The Hill, and couldn’t resist inviting owner Jake and his faithful hound Barley back down for a feature.
The R129 was available with a dizzying array of engines – everything from a 2.8-litre six-cylinder up to a host of rare V12-powered AMG specials. Jake’s, though, is the mid-range 500SL (it’s a 1990 car, so predates Merc’s 1993 decision to flip the name around and put ‘SL’ at the beginning). This means it comes with the sturdy M119 5.0-litre 32-valve V8, making 322bhp.
Despite the muscular engine and two-seat roadster body, this era of SL was never a hardcore sports car. The V8s all came with four-speed automatics, and were far happier playing the laid-back cruiser, sitting in the fast lane of a motorway or prowling the more affluent parts of cities, presumably while the driver’s pager beeped away. This relaxed attitude makes it the perfect basis for a slick bagged build.
Jake, who works in special effects in the film industry, bought the car in 2022, and spent the summer of 2023 applying some choice modifications. Like Sacco’s timeless styling itself, this car is the perfect demonstration of a restrained, less-is-more approach. It sits on all-round air suspension from Air Out, a specialist concern operated by the semi-mythical Merc modifying figure known only as Rude Benz. This gives it the perfect show car stance atop a set of period-correct BBS RF split rims, colour-matched to the pristine, deep blue bodywork.
The rest is just a selection of subtle little touches that accentuate all the best bits of the car for a perfect OEM+ vibe. An AMG lip spoiler adds a tiny amount of drama at the rear, as do the custom twin exhausts that unlock the V8 rumble that was deliberately hushed from the factory.
Surprisingly – brand purists, stop reading now – that deep chin spoiler on the front comes from Munich, not Stuttgart: it’s from an E24 BMW 6 Series. It would take the most fervent stickler for originality to deny that it works, though.
Most of the interior has been left untouched. There’s a three-spoke, wood-rimmed wheel of a design originally featured on the W113 ‘Pagoda’ SL. Jake also tends to run his car with the optional factory hardtop, the rear screen of which is tastefully finished with some extremely retro Venetian blinds.
And that’s about it. As with all the best OEM+ builds, the name of the game is subtly and gently enhancing the brilliant base design. Having missed out on the 2023 show season while building the car, Jake plans to hit it hard next year.
The SL sits in Jake’s garage alongside an equally cool Porsche 944, also deep blue and wearing a set of colour-matched OZ Futuras. It’s a duo that speaks of a deep love of ’80s and ’90s German cars, and of an attitude to modification that lets that period’s much-loved designs speak for themselves, with a few personal touches thrown in. It’s German street culture – strassenkultur, if you will – done just right.
You can see more of Jake’s SL, as well as his 944, on his Instagram, @the_on_set_tech. If you have something you think would make a good feature, drop us a line at photoshoot@caffeineandmachine.com with some details.
