| Sometime in March, 1997 a friend told me about an old Mercedes-Benz for sale at a Lincoln-Mercury dealer near Milwaukee. The car, said to be a convertible, was being sold to settle an estate. After he drove to the dealership to check out the car, he called me excitedly and said that the "convertible" was, in fact, a beautiful near-mint original 300SL Roadster! |
 |
|
 |
What happens when the driver's door pops open on a 300SL— at 150 mph? For everyone except Don Ricardo, that's a purely hypothetical question. Don was probably the best known and most respected MBCA member, a man whose name has in his lifetime become synonymous with the 300SL and Mercedes-Benz. Still, of all his achievements he is most proud of his run at Bonneville, setting a record that has never been broken. | |
|
An article by Winston Goodfellow about the history of the 1955 300SL/SLS Prototype appeared in the September 2003 issue of "Classic & Sports Car" magazine |
|
|
|
|
This 300SL Gullwing prototype was handbuilt by the Mercedes Benz Experimental Department engineers and craftsmen in 1953/4 as a practical design exercise to determine the final configuration of the eventual production Gullwing. Click here to view the article |
|
|
An article about the history of the 1955 300SL/SLS Prototype appeared in the September / October 1991 issue of "The Star," a magazine published by the Mercedes-Benz Club of America. Click here to view current pictures of the car. |
|
|
|
|
The first article about the Italian Pinin Farina 300b Coupe appeared in the January / February 1993 issue of "The Star," a magazine published by the Mercedes-Benz Club of America. |
|
|
The second article about the Italian Pinin Farina 300s appeared in the November / December 1993 issue of "The Star," a magazine published by the Mercedes-Benz Club of America. |
|
|
|
|
Today, starting a new Mercedes-Benz dealership requires a multimillion dollar investment, but this wasn't always the case. In the 1960s a technically qualified individual could become a dealer on a shoestring. Among those who did so was Bert Reimschuessel. |
|
|
Among countless Americans moved by the 300SL's design was Bob Doehler, a senior stylist at Studebaker-Packard, the South Bend, Indiana, automaker that would soon become the American distributor for Mercedes-Benz. Doehler's position ultimately allowed him to do something that no one had ever done before— purchase a 300SL part by part! |
 |
|
