The Mercedes 300SL
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About this ebook
How should one approach the W198 300SL? With respect, as it is an automotive icon? Or extremely careful, as it costs more money than most people will earn in a lifetime? Whatever the answer might be, this e-book tells the W198 coupe and roadster story. It also explains in detail the chassis number and data card and talks about a very special pre-production roadster that has by some miracle survived till today in private hands. One chapter is devoted to two men, who have used the Gullwing for many years as daily driver. As with all other books by the author, this guide is accompanied by superb recent color photography, which also includes pictures of the frame and suspension.
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With over 25 books and e-books written about Mercedes-Benz cars, Bernd S. Koehling has proven to be an authority on the brand. Those books cover cars from the 1947 170V to the 2012 SL R231.
Bernd S. Koehling
With over 25 books and e-books written about Mercedes-Benz cars, Bernd S. Koehling has proven to be an authority on the brand. Those books cover cars from the 1947 170V to the 2012 SL R231. Bernd has been involved in the Mercedes scene since the early 1970s, when he restored his first 170 Cabrio B. Since then he has not only owned many classic Mercedes including a 220S, 300d Adenauer, 200D, 250SE, 280SE coupe 3.5, 300SEL, 350SL, 280E, 450SE, SLK230, he has also gained a wealth of knowledge and experience, which he shares with his readers in his books. Bernd has always considered Mercedes one of his favorite car manufacturers and has driven almost all Mercedes models built since the 1950s. His other weakness revolves around British cars, here especially Jaguar and Alvis. If you would like to know more about Bernd's books or want to read his blog with selected Mercedes stories, why don't you visit his website: benz-books.com
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Book preview
The Mercedes 300SL - Bernd S. Koehling
MERCEDES - BENZ
The Mercedes 300SL
Coupe, Roadster W198
1954 – 1963
By Bernd S. Koehling
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2014 Bernd S. Koehling
All rights reserved
tmp_3315c5169ee37e77ee6d8dba5eab33f9_NPZNQf_html_m7eb9757b.jpgtmp_3315c5169ee37e77ee6d8dba5eab33f9_NPZNQf_html_m3fc9d53f.jpgCONTENT
Foreword
The Cars
300SL W198 (1954 – 1963)
A new beginning
The development of the SL
The technical aspects
The 300SL Coupe
A delicate engine and suspension
A logical successor: the roadster
The secret SLS
The launch of the roadster
The sales performance
The racing history
Outlook and competition
Experiencing the Gullwing
- David Douglas Duncan
- Clark Gable
Rudolf Uhlenhaut
Technical chapters
The chassis number explained
The data card explained
Technical specifications
Production history
About the author
One last thing
FOREWORD
First of all I would like to thank you for having purchased this e-book and I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It is part of an e-book series that covers all SL cars from the Gullwing to the latest SL R231.
The economy was booming in Europe in the second half of the 1950s and the general situation was almost as upbeat in the US, where a high employment rate and increasing wages created a burgeoning, more affluent middle class that proved to be a fertile breeding ground for imported sports cars from Europe. While the British were naturally the first to develop that still small niche successfully already in the early 1950s with affordable cars such as the MG A, Austin Healey 100 or Triumph TR 2, the market proved to be so lucrative that also high-end thoroughbreds from Aston Martin, Jaguar, Ferrari, Porsche and Daimler-Benz could achieve sales volumes that would have been impossible to reach in Europe.
The flamboyant, Austrian born New York entrepreneur and car importer Max Hoffman was the initiator of the 300SL and also 190SL, as he saw a big market for such cars in the US. Both cars were unveiled in February 1954 at the New York Motor Show and made an unbelievable impression on North American motorists. The 300SL was not only a design and performance milestone, it was also instrumental in changing the American public’s view on German vehicles. It had heard before very little about a company called Daimler-Benz. And if it did, it was not necessarily positive.
The 1950s started for Daimler-Benz with an old warmed-up four-cylinder car dating back to the 1930s. Management had big uncertainties of what the future might have in store for them. The decade ended with an impressive line of modern cars, the 300SL the most iconic of them. Whatever the size, Mercedes cars were ready to take on the finest that the competition could throw at them.
Some of you have also asked me, whether it is possible to include more information about the men that were responsible for all these wonderful cars. This e-book has that is why a separate chapter added, that covers the career of Rudolf Uhlenhaut in Daimler-Benz. Other books cover people like Nallinger, Barenyi, Wilfert or Hoffman. As this book is more about cars, please accept my apology that this chapter cannot be a full blown biography.
December 2014
Bernd S. Koehling
MB 300SL Coupe W198 I (1954 – 1957)
MB 300SL Roadster W198 II (1957 – 1963)
A new beginning
In order to understand the success of the 300SL, we have to go back in history a little bit, leave old Europe and cross the pond to take a look at the situation in the US in the mid 1940s.
After WWII European automobile manufacturers, especially the British, were eager to establish a foothold on the large US market. American GIs had seen and fallen in love with cars such as the famous MG TA and TB, while serving during the war in Great Britain. Now they wanted to drive them back home. And the British, supported by subsidies from their government, were only too willing to help.
For most Americans in the late 1940s, such a small sports car seemed as strange as the people who wanted to drive them. Although Detroit’s Big Three had long offered fancy rumble-seat models and even flashy two-seaters, most of these cars were based on a sedan chassis and not comparable to what the British had in mind, when they talked about sports cars. Most Americans preferred what they already had and were looking forward to buy similar cars again. Why would any person in his right mind waste money on an old-fashioned small car such as the MG? So initially after the war, distribution of these cars was extremely limited and people, who drove them, lived in ritzier places of California or the East Coast. They were a tough nut to crack by cars that were offered by Detroit, they just did not want them. The Big Three could not care less of course. In the late 1940s, early 1950s they had a huge demand to satisfy, because Americans did not have any new car to buy for several years.
The MG, although in the heart of many young Americans, never achieved any real sales success. But it had ignited a fire that slowly started to spread throughout the US. The sports car, European style (or let us say in all fairness: British style), had landed and the American car scene would change forever. A young but increasingly more influential car magazine, which was founded in 1947, fueled it in no small measure. Born out of the protest movement against Detroit offerings, it helped to stimulate younger Americans’ interest in foreign cars, sports cars in particular. The magazine is called Road & Track.
William Lyons, charismatic owner of Jaguar, was among the first who wanted to capitalize on this new movement in the US. And with the introduction of the XK 120 in 1948, Americans suddenly had a state of the art sports car available that took them by storm. This scenario of course did not pass by unnoticed independent US car dealers. More and more of them started to take up to the new frenzy and wanted to import European, and here mainly British cars. Among the many dealers who laid their hands on the importation of cars, two of them did more to grow the foreign car market in the US than anyone else.
tmp_3315c5169ee37e77ee6d8dba5eab33f9_NPZNQf_html_m33520afb.jpgThe origin of it all, here the Carrera Panamericana version of the W194
On the West Coast, Kjell Qvale served the Californian market from his office in San Francisco and in New York it was Austrian born Max Hoffman, who served clients on the East Coast, but later on the West Coast too.
Max Hoffman started in 1947 from his fancy showroom at Park Avenue and 59th Street with the French luxury brand Delahaye and added soon Jaguar and MG. Over the next years, he introduced many more brands to his fellow countrymen, most notably Volkswagen and Porsche. In 1951 he contacted Daimler-Benz in Stuttgart and proposed to be their distributor for the North American market. When a contract was finally signed in January 1952, it was agreed that Hoffman would import 253 cars annually. His relationship with Daimler-Benz incensed William Lyons, so he lost his lucrative contract with Jaguar.
Hoffman took frequently part in the development of cars that he thought could be suitable for the US market. The Porsche Speedster and BMW 507 are just two such examples. After the success of the 300SL W194 race car in Bern, Switzerland and after a one-two finish in June of 1952 in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Hoffman sent a cable to Stuttgart, urging management that it would be important not to ignore the opportunity such victories had created for a street going version of the W194. He knew of course that many of his affluent clients would love to acquire a road version of the successful race car. In order to convince a rather hesitant Daimler-Benz management of his plans, he followed up with an order of 1,000 cars, split between the SL and a proposed smaller brother.
tmp_3315c5169ee37e77ee6d8dba5eab33f9_NPZNQf_html_mcb058d3.jpgEven without such a large order, Daimler-Benz knew that a road version of the W194 would be an ideal image-maker to help sell the other brand’s cars. In order to discuss plans further, it was decided to invite Max Hoffman in September 1953 to a board meeting in Stuttgart. As was the case with other meetings with Hoffman, discussions were quite heated. Hoffman made a