Museo Stradale
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Dominic's Auto Museum
One man's passionate quest to survey finest motorcars in the world
#0014 - Mercedes-Benz 300SL Competition Coupe, 1954
Photographed: Laguna Seca, Monterey Historic Races, 2009.
The Soft World Beater: The nutshell on Mercedes' gullwing sports car is its seamless blend of race engineering, grand touring refinement, and singular automotive eroticism. On the first count, the car is derived from the great W series racing cars of grand prix and sports car dominance in the early 1950s. Without opening any hatch or bonnet, you can see the genetic link in the management of airflow: cabin ventilation in the center of the bulkhead and heat extraction from the motor on the flank, both patterned after racing cars such as the W-196 Stromlienenwagen and 300SLR. On the second count, the 300SL is famously civilized, a modest rebuke of its power, speed, and durability. Often seen are matching luggage sets for the cabin, itself adorned with what must be the most beautiful dashboard arrangement of any post-War sports car. On the third count are ground breaking advances in design and engineering. Fuel injection by Bosch replaced the Solex carburetion of the 300S racing car, providing the SL with anywhere between 215 and 250 horsepower depending on model year and tuning. Then there are the doors, born out of necessity to accomodate the 180 lb. chro-moly chassis, and forever iconic. Perhaps only the Countach from Lamborghini had similar success with a new door pattern, and theirs was for its own sake—not nearly so honest in its origin.
In total, the car is remarkably not this: a monstrous amalgamation of various performance and marketing aims. It is cohesive, quirky in some aspects, but wholesome to the point of eliciting deep desire. The aesthetic captures interest while the performance keeps pace with modernity such that the package is timeless—an unrepeatable assemblance of one company's full knowledge of building automobiles. No car will ever rival the 300SL in representing the Mercedes-Benz marque.
Further, the 300SL is not any of this: gruff, blunt, or offensive. The car is clad in a pervasive softness, not to say it is dainty or incapable of stirring serious pretentions, but just that it projects a feeling of unapologetic elegance. This signifies the point at which a car becomes desirable not for its competition success, performance specification, or creature comfort, but because it has become a tautology of sorts—a definitive vehicle, as can only be explained by like kind.
Morphology: Ours is an early example that started life as a common road car before being handled by a family of enthusiasts who seem to know how to prepare a 300SL. At Laguna Seca, they had two early coupes side by side, and heading into the weekend races I had the pleasure of witnessing one of them rumble through Cannery Row in Monterey. Lacking the refinement of a proper exhaust and running a few inches lower that a stock 300SL, the car was an attention fetching event both by eye and by ear. And so I was happy to share my appreciation for the moment later in the race weekend, when these photos were collected.
Part of the charm in this car's proportion comes from its lack of front bumper. This much is a heft of metal that, when absent, reveals the full shape of the nose. The front quarters continue a subtle sweep toward the ground, while the curves surrounding the grille are gentle. Taken as a whole, the aesthetic is almost English, reminiscent of the Jaguar C-Type, but with the austerity of a Nash-Healey layed over top. Anyhow, the absence of the bumper shortens the aspect of the car, and accentuates the subtle arch of the front wings along the flank. Ridges on the bonnet, eyebrows over the wheels, and accent strakes on the motor vent all flow backward, and they all build upon this notion of subtle arch.
Then the cabin shape and rear haunches are perfectly rounded off, with a classic attention to overhang and notchback proportions. This is one of the designs GM hauled into their studio to craft the Corvette Stingray—the seminal Stingray of 1963 with ducktail and split windows. Larry Shinoda penned that design for 1957, (much of which is explained in the piece on our 1961 Corvette), although some of the proportion stuck to the 1958 production version, particularly evident when hardtop is attached. To be complete about things, the other car hauled into the design studio was a Thunderbird.
Back to the 300SL, we should note how the gullwing doors take their own shape when lifted from the mold of the car. The effect recalls the Chance Vought F4U Corsair, an effective Navy fighter plane of World War II known for its gullwing design. The Corsair's wings appear inverted on the 300SL, and embellished by the curvature of the car, (because they are, after all, doors and not wings). Though unintentional, the connection is established by virtue of the name, and holds visually as well.
And in the World of Someday: I have ventured a thought that, if the winds so blew in that direction, driving a gullwing would be rewarding. In fact, the 1,400 or so built over four years is a monumental number compared to production figures of most comparable classic sports car of the day. The Porsche 356, of course, far eclipsed the 300SL in number, but is a lesser grade of car. The Corvette, too, was produced in very high volume, unless you're seeking one of the very few fuel-injected cars with a 4-speed, which now cost as much as a 300SL but are so much rarer. For a comparable Ferrari, add a digit to the cost and then hem and haw over which unique specimen comes to auction. And for a BMW 507, wait, because only a handful were turned out by the struggling Bavarian auto-maker as they tried to recover from the War.
Jaguar is probably the best deal for beauty and performance, whether in the XK or E-Type, but there again is a disparity between the accomplishment of Jaguar—which did a lot with a simple, robust drivetrain and pristine aesthetics—and the pure eroticism of the 300SL. Simply put, 1,400 is an exceptional number considering the sort of car we're talking about. So please, don't let anyone say 300SL production was limited; that's plain hyperbole.
Sources:
It is impossible to be involved with classic cars and not read volumes on the 300SL... however, guidance for this piece was taken from the following:
Automobile Quarterly Editor Beverly Rae Kimes
Writer and Historian Quentin Wilson
"Great Marques Mercedes-Benz" by Roger Bell, Octopus Books Limited, London, 1980, pages 60-62, 64-67
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