Car of the Day - Mercedes-Benz 300 SL 1952 Gullwing

Car of the Day - Mercedes-Benz 300 SL 1952 Gullwing

Mercedes Benz by 1950 were starting to re-build an international reputation after the wake of WW2.

A modern performance oriented sports car capable of succeeding in world class race and rally events was required to elevate the company profile further. Mercedes wanted to re-establish the position they held in International Motorsport pre-1939.

The now iconic gullwing design first made its appearance in this less well known competition version. The 1952 300SL featured the unique door configuration more out of necessity than visual appeal. The equally legendary Mercedes engineer Rudolph Uhlenhaut dictated a lightweight tube spaceframe with great torsional strength for the new car. The result was a cross braced grid and ladder arrangement with an outer longitudinal section that required a higher position for the bottom of the doors. The spaceframe box that runs down the sides of the car also required quite a step to enter and exit the vehicle. The unique solution to the problem of designing a door around the chassis struck a cord with the public and raised the profile of Mercedes new sportscar. Almost 60 years on Mercedes AMG have returned to the configuration with a thoroughly modern re-interpretation.

Ulenhaut also naturally called for a lightweight body to clad the new spaceframe and assigned Untertarrkheim and Sindelfingen the task of designing the new car. The curvaceous shape foretold the ultimate 300SL design of 1955 and was from a drag efficiency standpoint a huge success, the designers delivered to brief with a lightweight body with an equally lightweight drag coefficient of Cd 0.25.

The low bonnet line called for the M194 (a development of the M186) 3.0 litre engine to be slanted at a 50 degree angle. This heavily slanted engine in turn called for the development of a new overhead cam cylinder head arrangement that in sectional view is more triangular than box shaped.

The 1952 300 SL achieved enormous success in competition (a full race history is planned for part 2 of this COTD), the most notable victory however is the 1-2 finish at the 1952 running of the 24 hours of LeMans.

Rod Halligan