The Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing was a wide ranging mannequin within the Fifties. And it nonetheless shows that aura as we speak. It was feather-like mild, it was lightning-fast and people doorways sprang out like gullwings, leaving onlookers in awe. Nearly seven many years later, a mannequin with an aluminum physique offered for $ 5 million at Monterey Automotive Week, throughout an RM Sotheby’s public sale.
The 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Gullwing is likely one of the 29 examples that acquired an aluminum physique. It was ordered by Swiss industrialist and sports activities automotive fanatic Rene Wasserman. As an alternative of getting it delivered in his hometown, Basel, Wasserman went to Germany himself, in November. He took the automotive and drove it again house. He didn’t maintain it for lengthy and in early 1960, the 300 SL Gullwing was setting wheels on American soil. Its second proprietor was Jerome Seavey from Chicago, Illinois. John Okay. Scattergood III adopted and the mannequin went to Pennsylvania.
Additionally in Pennsylvania, it acquired within the palms of Keystone State politician and fanatic Senator Theodore Newell Wooden. A decade and a half and three extra house owners later, the 300 SL acquired into the palms of a German collector. He commissioned Kienle Automobiletechnik to completely restore it. It was a tricky mission, for the reason that aluminum physique isn’t straightforward to take care of. They needed to exchange the components that had suffered an excessive amount of harm through the years. The KA specialists have been those who painted it in Silver Gray Metallic (DB 180) and turned the inside to its authentic colour, with purple leather-based.
The odometer solely reveals 1,620 miles (2,607 kilometers), presumably all of them after restoration.
The one who paid $5,010,000 to take it house can be getting numbers-matching chassis, engine, gearbox, entrance and rear axle, and steering field. It’s nonetheless lightyears away from the record-breaking quantity that the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe snatched this previous spring.
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