Mercedes-Benz W113 Pagoda
Original release: August 4th 2024
About the illustration
I’ve been quite busy this year, so I was as surprised as you when my first illustration of 2024 is shared in August, but here we are.
I have been mostly busy learning. How to build a business, how to write, how to create more things, how to improve my photography… quite a lot of things. They keep me busy but are building the backbone of my future, so I am equally tired and super excited.
But that said, I was also preparing for another trip to the UK, to visit the Goodwood Festival of Speed for the second time, after my 2023 visit.
And with that, I planned the trip in a very different way. Less focus on the cars, more focus on the people. And amongst the fantastic people I managed to meet there, one of them was Mr. Shami Kalra of Omologato fame.
I have been talking with Shami on Twitter for a while now, and slowly built a nice casual car centered relationship, as one of our shared passions.
Following him and his ever changing car collection inspires me, and one of the latest acquisitions from him was a beautiful red Pagoda, which is actually my favourite SL from Mercedes-Benz.
I was just astonished by the beauty of that car, that is getting even better by the day with all the love he’s pouring into it.
So naturally, inspiration hit and I decided to illustrate it.
After a while, I learned that Shami was visiting Goodwood for the Festival of Speed, so I tried to sync with him to get my most recent Omologato watch as well as to meet and chat for a bit in person and get to know each other.
At this point I already knew that I had to finish it before driving to the UK, because it would have been a shame to meet him just after creating this illustration, and not print it for him.
Behind the scenes look to the linework:
I honestly hope you enjoyed this illustration, and the story, as much as I did creating it.
I have seen just a couple of hours ago, that Shami shared a video showing both the illustration and the car together. He even posed the car to match the illustration! The attention to detail!