Seagull wings loved by the big stars of the Showa era
In May 2022, the name of Classic Mercedes suddenly ran around the world.
The 300SLR Uhlenhout Coupe.
This car, which had been in the museum for many years as a private collection of Mercedes-Benz Classic, was held secretly earlier this month.auctionBreaks the record for the world’s highest bid for automobiles. That amount is about 18.2 billion yen.
What kind of car is the 300SLR Uhlenhout Coupe?
Let’s take a bird’s-eye view of the entire Mercedes-Benz 300SL series that swept the sports car scene of the 1950s to know the ultimate one.
The Mercedes-Benz 300SL series, which was born in the 1950s, had commercial sports cars and racing cars, both of which had open and coupe models.
Among them, the coupe model was given the nickname “Gull Wing” because the shape of the open door looks like the wings of a flapping seagull.
The commercial 300SL gull wing was widely known in Japan as well as automobile fans.
The reason is that it was owned by professional wrestler Rikidozan, and was owned and loved by Yujiro Ishihara, a big star of the Showa era who fell in love with his car.
300SLR, great victory and catastrophe
Among the Mercedes-Benz 300SL series, only nine 300SLRs were produced from 1954 to 1955 at the end of the series.
The letter R added to the end of the car name indicates that it is a Rensportwagen (racing car).
Not uncommon in the racing world, the 300SLR was given a different structure than the commercial 300SL.
The steel pipe frame was dedicated, and the material of the body was replaced from aluminum to magnesium.
Also, the engine is equipped with an in-line 8-cylinder engine derived from the Grand Prix car instead of an in-line 6-cylinder engine. The ZF 5-speed gearbox was mounted on the rear side.
The best victory the 300SLR has won in the race is the 1955 Mille Miglia victory.
The combination of Stirling Moss and British motorsport journalist Denis Jenkinson won Italy’s leading long-distance race in record time.
On the other hand, the 300SLR is also known as one of the tragedy that triggered the catastrophe that occurred in the 1955 Le Mans 24-hour race.
Even after the accident, one of the 300SLRs was running alone at the top until the Mercedes camp decided to withdraw, so the speed was absolute.