The Driver
Mercedes-Benz is celebrating 70 years of its legendary SL, which seems to have come around very quickly because I’m only just getting over its 60th-anniversary celebration of the evergreen sporting cruiser. In 2012 the launch was based at the louche Marbella Club – in those days the motor industry was flush with cash, so launches took place in properly exotic locations. Brooklands in Surrey (see Overdrive)? No chance – this was the luxe junket that sped from Marbs along that terrific road up through Ronda and north to Cortijo el Puntal de Teba. The roads were sublime, traffic police conspicuous by their absence.
The SL is one of the most standout models in the automotive lexicon. It certainly has been a halo product for Benz for 70 years, and I suppose we must thank the New York Benz importer, Max Hoffman, for persuading the boys in Stuttgart to create a roadgoing version of the race-dominating SLR, the most famous version of which Stirling Moss drove to an outstanding victory in 1955 on the tough Mille Miglia with journalist Denis Jenkinson, using his loo-roll pace notes to navigate the course. They completed the Mille in 10hr 7min 48sec, averaging 99mph, a record never broken.
The 300SL was launched at the New York International Auto Show (not Frankfurt, nor Geneva) in 1954. Some 1400 ‘Gullwing’ Coupés and 1850 Roadsters had been produced when production ceased in 1963. The smaller 190SL was subsequently produced alongside its big brother, and around 25,880 of those were built. At last, the true meaning of the SL abbreviation has been discovered in the Benz archives, clearing up the confusion: it stands for Super Leicht and not Sports Leicht, not that either best describes the sybaritic SL.
Was the legendary Gullwing the world’s first supercar? With its power-generating desmodromic valve gear, fuel-injected engine, those upward hingeing doors, tartan golf-club styled seats and wind-tunnel looks, the ’Wing and Roadster are sought-after and usually part of any first-rate classic car collection. I’ve been fortunate to drive a few and, with subtle modifications to the rear swing axles, a high-ratio diff and the cabin heater controls sorted out, the Gullwing makes a good fist of being a great continental GT. The second-rung 190SL? Less so. As standard
