Mercedes SLR300 - last chance to see (and hear)

UPDATED May 29, 2005 The legendary Mille Miglia road race from Brescia to Rome and back started in 1927 and continued until the mid-fifties. The record for the 1000 mile journey was set in 1955 - ten hours, seven minutes and 48 seconds at an average speed of 97.96 mph. The driver was Stirling Moss and Juan Manual Fangio finished a Mercedes Benz 1-2 in the fabled Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR. The Mille Miglia has now been revived as a gentlemans rally, and this year Mercedes entered the car in the event for the last time, appropriately driven by Moss and F1 and Le Mans winner Jochen Mass. It will only have two more public outings before it retires to the Mercedes-Benz museum. - the Goodwood Festival of Speed (June 24 – 26) and the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance (August 14).

The Mille Miglia is the stuff of legends – the 1000 mile road race from Brescia to Rome and back to Brescia started in 1927 and in those early years when it was a genuine race, the winners included names like Ascari and Nuvolari and the race was held in the highest esteem by manufacturers and European public alike – a win in the Mille Miglia was worth a lot of sales over the following year.

The race continued on public roads until the mid-fifties when several tragedies made authorities realise that racing should be done on racetracks and not roads and the race was stopped.

By that stage, the record for the 1000 mile journey had been reduced to just ten hours, seven minutes and 48 seconds at an average speed of 97.96 mph.

The driver was Stirling Moss, and the car was the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR, a thinly disguised Mercedes Benz Formula 1 car capable of 180mph. Only two were ever built and they finished first and second in the 1955 race with Juan Manuel Fangio driving the second car.

If that seems fast for 1955, there’s a reason – the car was built using the Mercedes Benz Formula One car of the day as the basis. The 300 SLR is in the opinion of many, one of the most beautiful Grand Tourers ever to be produced.

The 300SLR jewel by the Stuttgart marque is maybe the finest and most sophisticated road car ever built by the three-pointed star. Don’t be deceived by its name: this is not an evolution of the popular 300 SL, but of the W196, the model that scooped the F1 World Championship twice, in 1954 and 1955 with Juan Manuel Fangio at the wheel.

The 3000cc 8-cylinder engine was mounted sideways to improve aerodynamics and lower the centre of gravity and had desmodromic valve actuation. The engine produced 310bhp at 7500rpm, and weighed just 800kg dry. All this considered, four out of nine SLRs built were lined up at the start of the 22nd running of the mille miglia on May 1 & 2, 1955. Fangio, Moss, Hermann and Kling made up the driving team, but the English pairing of Moss and Jenkinson was to make history in more ways than one.

First of all, the better the understanding between driver and navigator in an event such as this, the better the result.

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