MERCEDES - BENZ
THE 1950s
The 300SL Coupe, Roadster W198
1954 – 1963
By Bernd S. Koehling
Copyright 2012 Bernd S. Koehling
Smashwords Edition
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CONTENT
The Cars
300SL W198 (1954 – 1963)
First of all I would like to thank you for having purchased this book and I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. It is part of an e-book series that covers all cars produced by Daimler-Benz during the 1950s and 1960s.
The economy was booming in Europe in the second half of the fifties and the general situation was almost as upbeat in the US, where a high employment rate and increasing wages created a burgeoning more affluent middle class that proved to be a fertile breeding ground for imported sports cars from Europe. While the British were naturally the first to develop that still small niche successfully with affordable cars such as the MG A, Austin Healey 100 or Triumph TR 2, the market proved to be so lucrative that also high-end thoroughbreds from Aston Martin, Jaguar, Ferrari, Porsche and Daimler-Benz could achieve sales volumes that would have been impossible to reach in Europe.
The flamboyant, Austrian born New York entrepreneur and car importer Max Hoffman was the initiator of the 300SL and also 190SL, as he saw a big market for such cars in the US. Both cars were unveiled in February 1954 at the New York Motor Show and made an unbelievable impression on North American motorists. The 300SL was not only a design and performance milestone, it was also instrumental in changing the American public’s view on German vehicles. It had heard before very little about a company called Daimler-Benz. And if it did, it wasn’t necessarily positive.
For Daimler-Benz the fifties started with an old warmed-up four-cylinder car dating back to the thirties. Management had big uncertainties of what the future might have in store for them. The decade ended with an impressive line of modern cars, which were ready to take on the finest that competition could throw at them.
March 2012
Bernd S. Koehling
MB 300SL Coupe W198 I (1954 – 1957)
MB 300SL Roadster W198 II (1957 – 1963)
In order to understand the success of the 300SL, we have to go back in history a little bit, leave old Europe and cross the pond to take a look at the situation in the US in the mid forties.
After WWII European automobile manufacturers, especially the British, were eager to establish a foothold on the large US market. American GIs had seen and fallen in love with cars such as the famous MG TA and TB, while serving during the war in Great Britain. Now they wanted to drive them back home. And the British, supported by subsidies from their government, were only too willing to help.
For most Americans in the late forties, such a small sports car seemed as strange as the people who wanted to drive them. Although the big three had long offered fancy rumble-seat models and even flashy two-seaters, most of these cars were based on a sedan chassis and not comparable to what the British had in mind, when they talked about sports cars. Most Americans preferred what they already had and were looking forward to buy similar cars again. Why would any person in his right mind waste money on an old-fashioned small car such as the MG? So, initially after the war, distribution of these cars was extremely limited and people, who drove them, lived in ritzier places of California or the East Coast. They were a tough nut to crack by cars that were offered by Detroit, they just didn’t want them. The big three couldn’t care less of course. In the late forties they had a huge demand to satisfy, because Americans didn’t have any new car to buy for four years.
The MG, although in the heart of many young Americans, never achieved any real sales success. But it had ignited a fire that slowly started to spread throughout the US. The sports car, European style (or let’s say in all fairness: British style), had landed and the American car scene would change forever. A young but increasingly more influential car magazine, which was founded in 1947, fueled it in no small measure. Born out of the protest movement against Detroit offerings, it helped to stimulate younger Americans interest in foreign cars, sports cars in particular. The magazine is called Road & Track.
William Lyons, charismatic owner of Jaguar, was among the first who wanted to capitalize on this new movement in the US. And with the introduction of the XK 120 in 1948, Americans suddenly had a state of the art sports car available that took them by storm. This scenario of course did not pass by unnoticed independent US car dealers. More and more of them started to take up to the new frenzy and wanted to import European, and here mainly British sports cars. Among the many dealers who laid their hands on the importation of cars, two of them did more to grow the foreign car market in the US than anyone else.
The origin of it all, here the Carrera Panamericana version of the W194
New York, February 6th, 1954; and the automotive world would never be the same again
On the West Coast, Kjell Qvale served the Californian market from his office in San Francisco and in New York it was Austrian born Max Hoffman, who served clients on the East Coast, but later on the West Coast too.
Max Hoffman started in 1947 from his fancy showroom at Park Avenue and 59th Street with the French luxury brand Delahaye and added soon Jaguar and MG. Over the next years, he introduced many more brands to his fellow countrymen, most notably Volkswagen and Porsche. In 1951 he contacted Daimler-Benz in Stuttgart and proposed to be their distributor for the North American market. When a contract was finally signed in January 1952, it was agreed that Hoffman would import 253 cars annually. His relationship with Daimler-Benz incensed William Lyons, so he lost his lucrative contract with Jaguar.
Hoffman took frequently part in the development of cars that he thought could be suitable for the US market. The Porsche Speedster and BMW 507 are just two such examples. After the success of the 300SL W194 racecar in Bern, Switzerland and after a one-two finish in June of 1952 in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which left the remaining competitors absolutely stunned, Hoffman sent a cable to Stuttgart, urging management that it would be important not to ignore the opportunity such victories had created for a street going version of the W194. He knew of course that many of his affluent clients would love to acquire a road version of the successful racecar. In order to convince Daimler-Benz of his plans, he followed up with an order of 1,000 cars.
Even without such a large order, Daimler-Benz knew that a road version of the W194 would be an ideal image-maker to help sell the other brand’s cars. In order to discuss plans further, it was decided to invite Max Hoffman in September 1953 to a board meeting in Stuttgart. As was the case with other meetings with Hoffman, discussions were quite heated. Hoffman made a strong case for his point of view and had mostly very little regards for what other had to say. But finally at that September board meeting it was agreed that a 300SL in street version would be available for the 1954 New York Auto Show. At that time the New York show was the most important car show in the US. In the meeting it was also decided to retain the name 300SL for this road SL. As was customary with Daimler-Benz, the "300" referred to the engine's cylinder displacement and the "SL" stood for 'Sport Leicht' or 'Sport Light'. Max Hoffman was pleased with that decision and left again for the US in order to prepare for the launch.
In Stuttgart the race was now on for head of testing department Karl Wilfert and a team in his department around chief stylist Friedrich Geiger to develop a civilian version of the W194. Normally the department for car body development, headed by Herrmann Ahrens was in charge of design. Ahrens and his department had designed the 300 sedan and 300S.
Before the war, Ahrens had created such icons as the 540K. But apparently Karl Wilfert and his team had proposed a more convincing form of the racecar SL, so the task to develop it further remained with them. Wilfert’s unique taste in defining Mercedes cars profile gained in the early fifties such a prominence, that he was to head Daimler-Benz styling department in 1955. At the same time, the technicians around Rudolf Uhlenhaut were to come up with the necessary technical and engineering refinements. They had less than five months for the project.
Now, who is the more colorful one here?
First it was decided to stick to the space frame of the racecar, which had been conceived by Uhlenhaut. Since 1936 Uhlenhaut had played as technical director in charge of racecar construction and testing a leading role in developing the tubular space frame of the Formula One Silver Arrow W125 car. In the immediate post-war period he worked with British Army engineers and designed a series of smaller racecars with rear-mounted engines in which he incorporated the tubular space frame again. This frame was welded together by a series of extremely thin tubes, which formed triangles and had despite its low weight an impressive torsional stiffness. This worked nicely in open racecars, but when the closed 300SL race-coupe prototype was created, it presented Uhlenhaut and his team of engineers with a new kind of problem: how can the driver enter the car.
The three-dimensional frame, which weighted only 82 kg (181 lbs), would require for sufficient stiffness more room underneath conventional front-hinged doors. That meant the doorways had to be moved further up, ruling out the use of front-hinged doors. Thus, the gullwings were born. But as the upper edges of the cross members were so high, the upward-swinging doors ended at the lower edge of the side windows and were more like entry hatches than full fletched doors. But for Daimler-Benz to consider gullwing doors the way we know them today, the proposal didn’t come from their own engineers. It came from a different source.
It came in April 1952 from a certain Monsieur Acat, who was the race secretary of the ACO, the French Automobile Club de l’Ouest. The ACO was the organizer of the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Acat pointed out to Daimler-Benz race team-leader Alfred Neubauer that the entry hatches of the 300SL W194 prototype didn’t conform to regulations. But he also mentioned that he had thought of a solution and gave the astonished Neubauer a drawing on a piece of paper. And that drawing showed our gullwing doors.
While the project proceeded full force now on the road going version, small details of these gullwing doors were re-evaluated. At one of numerous such meetings it was decided to do away with conventional door handles, as they were perceived to ruin the clean lines of the design. Instead they came up with clever pull-out bars, which disengaged the door lock. With the assistance of a telescoping spring, the doors could then be lifted upwards.
They are meant to be driven, rain or shine
One thing is for sure, you will not suffer from a cold cabin for long
While most of the body consisted of high-grade steel, aluminum was used for the hood, the skin panels for the doors and doorsills and for the trunk lid. The car’s net weight was only 1,310 kg (2,888 lbs). A 170S weighted just 90 kg (198 lbs) less. Still, customers had the option to save even more weight, by ordering for a slight surcharge of around 1,000. – US$ the whole body made from light alloy. In addition these cars had a hotter camshaft, plexiglas side windows, shorter competition springs and stiffer shock absorbers. This reduced the weight by another 80 kg (176 lbs). Only 29 such cars were ordered. From an investment point of view, such a purchase would have been a wise decision, as these cars are highly sought-after today.
Uhlenhaut did not only come up with the frame of the car, he was deeply involved throughout the entire development. This included, among many other tasks, intense road testing. Most certainly he was one of the most gifted engineers the German automotive scene had to offer. As a test driver he frequently managed to outpace official Daimler-Benz race drivers. He himself was barred from participating in official races. The Daimler-Benz board was too afraid to lose one of their most talented managers. And he himself also preferred to work behind the scene.
At one occasion Juan Manuel Fangio reported to Uhlenhaut that he thought his new W196 Formula One car was not quite set up yet. Uhlenhaut just looked at him, but didn’t say a word. Instead he invited Fangio to a substantial lunch. Before main course was served he asked him, what the master didn’t like with his car. After all, Uhlenhaut had helped to design it and had done most of the road testing and final chassis tuning. Thus he was keen to learn where the car could be bettered. After having listened patiently to Fangio’s observations, Uhlenhaut decided to test the car himself after lunch. Dressed in business-suit and tie, he climbed into the W196 and lapped the Nürburgring a full three seconds faster than the world champion. When he pulled after one more lap alongside Fangio, he smiled at him and said that there was nothing that a little more practice on Fangio’s side wouldn’t put right. The master never complained in the presence of Uhlenhaut again.