The Mercedes-Benz 300 SL

The legendary Mercedes-Benz Gullwing is one of the rare cars designed for competition use before the manufacturer decided it would also be the perfect sports car for the most demanding car enthusiasts.

Always good luck

During his presentation during the 1952 competition season, the Gullwing was a sensation at every competition he competed with. The 300 SL not only took the first two places in the Le Mans that year, it also took the first four places at the Nürburgring, first and second place during the Carrera Panamerica, and second and fourth place in the Mille Miglia.

Under pressure from the importer

As with the Ferrari Daytona and the Porsche Speedster, the birth of the Gullwing on the public highway was the result of the coercion exercised by the American importer, the former German immigrant Max Hoffman, on the Mercedes-Benz board. Hoffman guaranteed the German car giant a purchase of 500 units for the American market. That led Mercedes-Benz to set up a production line especially for the 300 SL.

Close and open

So it was that the 300 SL was unveiled in February 1954 in New York and then got a parallel model in the form of the 300 SL Roadster, a convertible. American buyers welcomed the Benz specified for a top of 255 km / h and bought 80% of the Gullwings and Roadsters produced.

The 300 SL was pioneering in many ways in terms of styling and technology

First, he had a three-dimensional tubular frame because the head of the "detective and research department," Rudolf Uhlenhaut, insisted on using such a welded framework instead of the traditional approach with a platform chassis and a carrying body. That decision made it difficult to use simply flapping doors. The ingenious, hinged doors were devised to solve that problem.

Also in aluminum

Despite the fact that the 300 SL competition was made of aluminum, the 'normal' Gullwing was made of steel. Incidentally, 25 aluminum specimens were produced for the extremely richly upholstered happy few.

With fuel injection

Another revolutionary benefit of the 300 SL was the introduction of the mechanical fuel injection. With that, Mercedes had a world first in automotive serial production. The fuel injection helped the 3.0 liter deliver six-cylinder 215 hp and a torque of more than 275 Nm. An 1954'er Gullwing was 255 km / h fast.

The design of the 300 SL was a sleek, elegant automobile

With its ventilation grilles placed in the flanks and the 'eyebrows' above the wheel arches, the Auto had a 'post-Art Deco appearance' that, together with its radical door construction, set the SL down as a pure expression of Germanic college car technology.

Although the 300 SL was a direct descendant of the SLR competition, Mercedes-Benz stopped all competition activities in 1955 after a terrible accident during the Le Mans.

A tragic accident

While the legendary Miguel Fangio was in the lead there in his SLR, Pierre Levegh was at the wheel of the second Mercedes. During the race, Lance Macklin's Austin-Healey had to be fully anchored and set aside after being passed by Mike Hawthorne in his Jaguar. That brought Macklin on a collision course with Levegh's SLR that just accelerated. The Frenchman's Mercedes hit the back of Austin-Healey. Then SLR crashed against the wall with his driver immediately killed while all kinds of wreckage flew into the audience. Because of that flying rubble, more than eighty people were killed in the audience. It was the worst accident of all time in motor racing and the reason that Mercedes-Benz kept aloof from motorsport for almost forty years.

But the Gullwing put Mercedes back on the map as a sports car manufacturer

And became a textbook example of the leading German automobile craftsmanship for customers for whom no price was too high. The SL concept would later have worthy successors in the form of the 450 SL from the 70 years and more recently with the retro 600 SL and the 320 km / h fast SLR McLaren models, whose grilles are a tribute to the inspired nose of the original 300 SL.