Mercedes 300 SLR Race Car, the legend is back!

300 SLR, no car, no roadster, no racer – a century-machine!

CarMANT: driven by passion!

The 300 SLR (sport-light-racecar) was built 1955 by Mercedes based on the legendary 300 SL “gullwing”
Historic facts can be found at the end of this abstract. Facts of the driving experience cannot be described by words.

It is not the classic feeling of driving, it is a melting with the engine, flying high, a feeling of liberty and adventure, luxury, style, sportive elegance and a performance worth a world star. But what do I tell you:

Look for yourself or still better experience for yourself:

As the 300 SLR history is hardly known, here are some facts:

The race car model 300 SLR was made from the 300 SL for the newly introduced sportscar-world-championship in 1955. Contrary to the 300 SL with gullwing doors, the SLR is an open 2-seater. Mercedes used an inline 8-cylinder engine which was divided into two 4-cylinder blocks transferring its force in the middle to avoid an excessive winding of an extremely long crankshaft. The pistons acted in chromium-bushes and the shafts had roller bearings to minimize wear losses.

The first race took place for the 300 SLR on 01.05.1955: the Mille Miglia in Italy which was won by Stirling Moss. Shortly after that during the Eifel Race at the Nürburgring Fangio won, Moss was second and Kling was fourth. Mercedes then finished the 24-hours Race in Le Mans before the end when the most tragic accident of motor sport history happened in the afternoon of 11.06.1955.

The French Mercedes pilot Pierre Levegh was forced by the inconsiderate driving of the English Jaguar pilot Mike Hawthorn to an accident with another race car and sideslipped into the audience where 82 people lost their lives. Mercedes withdrew immediately all remaining 300 SLR from the race for respect for the killed people.

Fangio and Moss had another double win at the Great Price of Kristianstad, Sweden, on 07.08.55, followed by a triple win on 17.09.55 by Moss/Fitch, Fangio/Kling and Trips/Simon during the TT in Dundrod (Irleand). On 16.10.1955 Stirling Moss/Peter Collins won with Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR in front of Fangio/Kling the Targa Florio and secured the sports car world championship for Mercedes-Benz. The Mercedes 300 is considered a milestone in motor sports, the silver arrows were often considered as superior or even as invincible.

And with this history …

…our CarMANT 300 SLR has only little in common, at any rate not the colour, but the race car body and a few technical details! We consider changing the colour to silver-grey upon arrival of our 300 SLR which was reconstructed in 1987 by Thoroughbred Motors in the USA based on a 351 Ford Windsor with the 5.7 liter engine with automatic gear and many small assistants.

Our 300 SLR can also be driven by non-trained racers and you may concentrate fully onto the traffic. The CarMANT 300 SLR serves mainly for the looks, the driving feeling and the respect for what Mercedes accomplished not even 10 years after the end of WW II for motor sports in any respect.

Now a rare video showing the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR (YouTube) before the very latest 300 SLR news:

This is a historic video clip showing the successful Mercedes 300 SLR in the race of the Mille Miglia in Italy in the 1950’s driven by Stirling Moss and Denis Jenkinson