Where does history end and legend begin? The alphabets S and L, when affixed to a car wearing the three-pointed star, give it an aura. But that’s something we know now. Well over 50 years back, when the words Sport and Light were tagged to a racing Merc known internally as the W194, the automotive world did not suspect a thing. After all, Mercedes-Benz was getting back to motor racing after being devastated by the Second World War. So the car they built was a temporary effort; time was short and there wasn’t much money to develop a proper racing car. It was an ad hoc machine with which they could compete, before they prepared a proper Grand Prix car to fit into the new regulations that were just around the corner. And what an ad hoc machine the 300 SL turned out to be!
Placing second at the Mille Miglia in 1952 was just the beginning. Records began to fall as the 300 SL went on a rampage at the Carrera Panamericana, the Le Mans 24 Hours, at Nurburgring, at Berne and many more gruelling races. The competition should have just looked back at Mercedes-Benz’s past to know that this Stuttgart firm could not be trifled with. Wasn’t this the same manufacturer that produced the S, SSK, SSKLs? Yes, though no one has told me this, I can draw the lineage of the SL all the way back to those deadly pre-WWII machines.
But here is history being made. I don’t know how many people have seen these two cars together – the direct descendant of the W194 racing legend and the latest, most powerful version of the SL. Okay, there is the V12 SL 65 AMG Black, but hello, allow me this boastful poetic licence. What we have pulled off here is amazing, by any measure. Thank you, thank you (accompanied by deep bows). No really, it was nothing, thank you.
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