The 300 SL race car won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1952, and this particular example belongs to a private collector. It will partake in the main event, the famous Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este.
It’s an important car for Mercedes-Benz for multiple reasons. After WWII, sanctions stopped the Germans from developing anything dangerous, so they spent time building epic racing cars. The 300 SL’s lineage can be traced to the current range, where its spirit lives on in vehicles like the Mercedes-AMG SL 63 and the AMG GT.
Mercedes used a sedan’s axles, transmission, and base engine to build this car. The defining feature was the lightweight but robust roll cage, which left no room for conventional doors. That’s how the iconic gullwing doors were born.
Merc’s US distributor convinced the Germans that the 300 SL would be a smash hit as a road car, and the result was the 1954 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing.
