The Supercar Book: The Complete Guide to the Machines that Make Our Jaws Drop

GAME CHANGER

1954 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL ‘Gullwing’

The Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing – the grandaddy of all supercars.

I AM STANDING IN THE POURING RAIN at the side of an old race track in Surrey. It is freezing cold and I have just been sitting, gridlocked, in a motorway traffic jam for over an hour. I haven’t eaten, I’m tired and I’m soaking wet, but I don’t care. In fact, I feel like I have won the lottery. Why? Because I am standing next to a 1954 Mercedes-Benz ‘Gullwing’ 300 SL. This book’s first game changer.

First up, a little rain-soaked context: many histories of supercars take 1966 to be their Year Zero, with the advent of the magnificent, mid-engined Lamborghini Miura. Using the most commonly accepted criteria – that a mid-engine layout offers the perfect combination of balance, weight distribution and a low centre of gravity – then the Miura is indeed the first supercar (more on that later). However, I want to draw your attention back a decade to the stunning, front-engined car that I am standing next to in the rain. Okay, it’s not mid-engined but it is surely a supercar, if not the granddaddy of all supercars. The Mercedes 300 SL was the fastest car in the world on its launch, capable of reaching 160mph during an era when 100mph was the norm, and with looks that were simply staggering.

The car was the brainchild of Mercedes’ chief race engineer Rudolf Uhlenhaut. In the early-to-mid-1950s, Mercedes were dominating on the race track and in some ways the 300 SL was a road-going version of their amazingly successful Silver Arrows racing cars. The Gullwing’s direct racing predecessor won the 24 Hours Du Mans in 1952, as well as the Carrera Panamericana endurance rally in its debut season, so the racing pedigree of the proposed new Mercedes was high. Those inside the automotive industry knew that a road-going version of this successful racer would be quite some package if Mercedes could pull it off.

Uhlenhaut was asked to build a new racing car from the bare bones of the luxurious and highly regarded 300 Sedan – in post-war Germany, the finances were simply not available to develop a car from scratch. Added to that, the factories of Daimler-Benz had been extensively bombed during the war, razing the majority of their production facilities to the ground. So, the car manufacturer was literally trying to rise from the ashes. In 1951, Mercedes’ management called a meeting to discuss the design of a radical new sports car. Remarkably, the time from that initial meeting to the completion of the first 300 SL chassis would be just five months. Uhlenhaut used the core of the 300 Sedan’s engine, four-speed manual transmission, and its suspension system as the nucleus of this new design. However, in many other ways this would be a pioneering car.

Back in Surrey, after I had finished drooling over the 300 SL’s rain-spattered shape, the first question that sprang to mind was, ‘Why does it have those glorious gullwing doors?’ From a creative perspective, the answer lies within a quote from the Mercedes Benz race team manager, Alfred Neubauer, who simply said, ‘Nowhere is it written that a door must open sideways.’ In fact, the doors were not designed simply to look good; they were actually an engineering necessity due to the innovative space-frame chassis underneath. This strong and lightweight skeleton of steel tubes was a very early use on a road car and presented a major challenge for the skilled fabricators at Mercedes. These tubes were wrapped around the sides of the car, where normal door openings would have been. Consequently, the door sills needed to be unusually high. The gullwing doors were a necessity, then, to allow access into the vehicle – a structural consequence of the space-frame, rather than just a design flourish. We should be thankful for that, although you might not agree if you need to repair one, as the space-frame is both extremely pricey to work on and prone to leaks.

The gullwing door design was actually changed three times before the production version was finalised. The first prototype had used a handle with a hole for a finger grip, succeeded by a push-button, before the final design was implemented, which used a flush handle that pops out when depressed.

The 300 SL had two further notable elements, besides the space-frame and gullwing doors. The first was an independent four-wheel suspension, which improved the handling compared to many cars of the day. And, finally, the car was also the first road-going vehicle to successfully have direct fuel injection. Although fuel injection had been experimented with on car prototypes since the early 1930s, this was the very first example in actual production – an idea taken directly from aeronautical industry research. (Interestingly, one bulge in the 300 SL’s hood was added to allow room for the fuel injection system, while the other bulge was included simply to make the car symmetrical.)

The car is mainly steel-bodied, with an aluminium bonnet, doors, rocker panels, firewall, floor, belly pans and boot lid. A small number of models were made with an all-aluminium skin. These rare versions now command huge premiums against the standard models, sometimes as high as five- or six-times the price. These special models can also be recognized by leather welts under their so-called ‘eyebrows’, fitted over the wheel arches to aid aerodynamics.

The stunning Sindelfingen design-bodied car was first seen in February 1954, but racing sports car prototypes had been unveiled back in 1952 (with two spare wheels in the tail, and a smaller cockpit turret top than the later road versions). Subverting most prototype-to-production car evolution standards, the eventual road-going 300 SL was actually more lean, daring and curvaceous than the prototype. That amazingly sleek body is actually made from 60 basic panels welded together.

The ‘300’ refers to the 3-litre, flat-6 engine, which generated 220bhp (a racing camshaft option could increase this to 240bhp), while the SL stands for ‘Super Leicht’, meaning ‘Super Light’. The engine is inclined at an angle of 50 degrees to the left to keep the centre of gravity as well as the height of the car down. A trial was planned using a supercharged racing version of the car – but this was abandoned, because the normally aspirated engine was already producing the maximum amount of horsepower that the rear axle could cope with.

Unlike future cars, such as the Porsche 959 and the Ferrari F40, which did not meet American regulations, the 300 SL was a vehicle targeted specifically at that market. American Mercedes dealer/distributor and former racing driver Max Hoffman felt a road-legal version of the marque’s racing success story would be highly sought-after in the US, so Mercedes decided to build the car with America’s wealthy post-war elite in mind. This is why the 300 SL was launched at the 1954 New York Auto Show, rather than in Europe. America did not import exotic European cars in any volume at the time, but there was a growing population of affluent, expert purists who were looking to buy expensive continental cars. Hoffman knew his business well. So well, in fact, that he placed an order for 500 cars on the spot.

Oblivious to the rain, I was mulling over all of this history as I stood next to this magnificent silver example of the 300 SL – fittingly, a resident of the Mercedes World museum in Surrey. The museum is located next to Brooklands, the world’s first purpose-built motor racing circuit, and it was a Mercedes that won the first race to take place there in 1907. Nowadays, the old circuit is complemented by a state-of-the-art modern museum and showroom facility, where brand-new Mercs sit next to priceless 19th century relics, as well as a shop, an AMG department and, rather delightfully, The Gullwing Bistro (which has normal restaurant doors, sadly, not gullwings).

I had been invited to see a 300 SL owned by Mercedes themselves, but first I had been out on track in the company’s new flagship model – the staggering SLS AMG, which is classed by Mercedes as a ‘spiritual successor’ to the original Gullwing. I met the hugely amiable Mercedes driver, Ed, who walked me to a bright red SLS AMG, worth in the region of £175,000 ($295,000). I took that 570bhp monster out on the track and was allowed to fully rag it, losing the back end on the ‘ice’ pan and thoroughly enjoying the experience. It was an astonishing car and the driver aids were incredible, keeping the massive engine in hand and all the time making me feel like I was a much better driver than I actually am.

With the weather being so atrocious, I assumed that I would only be allowed to look at the 300 SL in some air-conditioned, pristine garage. However, after we had finished with the SLS AMG, Ed turned to me and said that he had ‘warmed up’ the original Gullwing and that we should head back to the centre. ‘Warmed up’ sounded promising (because you literally have to warm up the dry sump oil in a deep reservoir to protect this old engine before driving the car). I was delighted and very surprised when we pulled up and there she was, gleaming silver, the heavy drops of rain battering her 60-year-old paintwork. What a beautiful car. Looking at it, I understood what is often said about the 300 SL – that it ‘looks fast standing still’.

I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to drive the Gullwing but I didn’t care; this was a privilege, regardless. I pulled the famous doors skywards and then slid into the deep-set maroon leather seats, each of which is stuffed with horsehair. Pulling the heavy gullwing down, Ed and I were both suddenly cocooned in a genuine slice of motoring history: a small cabin, lavishly wrapped in expensive-smelling leather, with a travel case at the back of our heads. The famously high sills become lovely armrests once you are inside. Every Gullwing instrument panel was painted the same colour as the external paintwork and this car was no exception. There were a few quirky features, too, such as the rear-view mirror being sited on the