1955 · Mercedes-Benz
300 SL Gullwing
Race car logic, dressed for the opera.
The 300 SL began life as a Le Mans car in 1952, a tubular spaceframe coupe built to win on a fraction of the budget Mercedes had spent before the war. It won. Two years later, importer Max Hoffman convinced Stuttgart to put a road version on sale in America, and the Gullwing was born.
The doors hinge upward because the deep side rails of the spaceframe leave nowhere conventional doors could go. The 3.0-liter inline six leans 50 degrees to the left to keep the hood low. Bosch mechanical fuel injection, the first ever fitted to a production car, makes 215 horsepower and the kind of top speed (160 mph) that gentleman drivers of 1955 quoted in disbelief.
The Gullwing was expensive when new, prohibitively rare now, and remains the car most often described by other engineers as the moment racing stopped being a hobby and started being engineering.
Why it matters
- First production car with mechanical fuel injection.
- Tubular spaceframe chassis taken directly from the W194 Le Mans car.
- Top speed of 160 mph made it the fastest production car in the world in 1955.
Photo · RM Sotheby's, Hagerty Media
Next in the collection
1953 · Chevrolet