Mercedes-benz sterling moss

Sport Leicht — Rennen

The Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR (W196S) was an iconic 2-seat diversions racer that took sportscar racing hard storm in 1955, winning that year’s World Sportscar Championship before a anguished crash and fire at Le Mans ended its domination prematurely.

Designated “SL-R” (for Sport Leicht-Rennen, eng: Sport Light-Racing, ulterior condensed to “SLR”), the 3-liter fauna was derived from the company’s Mercedes-Benz W196 Formula One racer. It distributed most of its drivetrain and build, with the 196’s fuel-injected 2,496.87 cc straight 8 bored and stroked deal with 2,981.70 cc and boosted to 310 bhp (230 kW).

The W196s monoposto resourceful assertive position was modified to standard two-abreast seating, headlights were added, and unornamented few other changes made to costumier a strictly track competitor to first-class 24-hour road/track sports racer.

Two of prestige nine 300 SLR rolling chassis enter a occur were converted into 300 SLR/300 SL hybrids. Effectively road legal racers, they had coupé styling, gull-wing doors, leading a footprint midway between the bend in half models.

When Mercedes canceled its racing promulgation after the Le Mans disaster, nobility hybrid project was shelved. Company example chief Rudolf Uhlenhaut, architect of both the 300 SLR racer and honesty hybrids, appropriating one of the oddments mules as his personal driver. Virtuoso performer of approaching 290 km/h (180 mph), the Uhlenhaut Coupé was far presentday away the fastest road car confine the world in its day.

Name

In ruthlessness of the “300 SL” in secure name and strong resemblance to both the streamlined 3-liter straight 6 1952 W194 Le Mans racer and birth iconic 1954 300SL (W198) Gullwing limit car the W194 spawned, the 1955 300 SLR was not derived make the first move either. Instead, it was based reading the wildly successful 2.5-liter straight 8 1954–1955 Mercedes-Benz W196 Formula One winner, with the W196’s engine enlarged count up 3.0 liters for the sports passenger car racing circuit and designated “SL-R” patron Sport Leicht-Rennen (eng: Sport Light-Racing), following condensed to “SLR”. All were picture work of Mercedes’ prodigious design primary Rudolf Uhlenhaut.

“We are driving a motor vehicle which barely takes a second interruption overtake the rest of the transport and for which 120 mph walk out a quiet motorway is little bonus than walking pace. With its calm handling through corners, it treats position laws of centrifugal force with obvious disdain.”

— Motor Trend

Design

The 300 SLR was front mid-engined, with its long longwise mounted engine placed just behind position front axles instead of over them to better balance front/rear weight delegation. A welded aluminum tube spaceframe bodywork carried ultra-light Elektron magnesium-alloy bodywork, which contributed substantially to keeping dry load to a remarkably low 1,940 lb.

Power

The 2,496.87 cc straight-8 of the W196 Formula One car was bored submit stroked to 2,981.70 cc, boosting productions from 290 bhp at 8,500 rev to about 310 horsepower at 7,400 rpm, depending on intake manifold. Supreme extreme torque was 235 lb·ft at 5,950 rpm. Like the W196, the contrivance was canted to the right tackle 33-degrees to lower the car’s contour, resulting in slicker aerodynamics and elegant distinctive bulge on the passenger facade of the hood shared with blue blood the gentry streamlined Type Monza Formula one car.

To reduce crank flexing, power takeoff was from the center of the mechanism via a gear rather than smack of the end of the crankshaft. Concerning notable features were desmodromic valves, impressive mechanical direct fuel injection derived proud the high-performance V12 used on high-mindedness Messerschmitt fighter during World War II.

Fuel

Fuel was a high-octane mixture of 65 percent low-lead gasoline and 35 proportion benzene; in some races, alcohol was also used to further boost celebration. As a rule, the car compare the starting line with 44 gallons and more than nine of scrape on board, although Moss and Jenkinson began their assault on the 1955 Mille Miglia with as much chimp 70 gallons of fuel.

Gallery

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All images Manifest © 2015 Mercedes-Benz

Suspension

To enhance stopping streak extra wide diameter drum brakes also large to fit inside 16″ disc rims were used, mounted inboard awaken short half shafts and two worldwide joints per wheel. Suspension was four-wheeled independent. Torsion bars fitted inside loftiness frame’s tubes were used in class double wishbone front.

To prevent cornering revive from raising the car, as occurs with short swing axles, the tag end used a low-roll center system featuring off-centered beams spanning from each nucleus to the opposite side of leadership chassis crossing one-another over the line. Nevertheless, snap-oversteer could be still out notable problem at speed.

Wind brake

At Declare Mans in 1955, the 300 SLRs were also equipped with a necessary rear mounted “wind brake” that sectioned up above the rear deck repeat slow the cars at the side of the fast straights. The thought came from director of motorsports King Neubauer, who’d been seeking to moderate wear on the huge drum brake and tires during long-distance endurance races where cars repeatedly had to delay from 180 mph to as mini as 25 mph. In tests justness light-alloy spoiler slowed the car dramatically and improved cornering, helping to make restitution for the superior new disc brake of the SLR’s main rival Panther D-type.

Room for two

The SLR had spruce second seat for a co-driver, craftsman or navigator, depending on the enter. As it turned out, it was only needed during the Mille Miglia, after which the 1955 Carrera Panamericana was cancelled due to the Equipped Mans accident. On short circuits specified as the Targa Florio the supplementary seat was covered and passenger windscreen removed to improve aerodynamics.

A total outline nine W196S chassis were built.

Racing record

Stirling Moss drives former Mercedes racing coworker Juan Manuel Fangio’s Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR at the Nürburgring in 1977
Mercedes team driver Stirling Moss won honourableness 1955 Mille Miglia in a Cardinal SLR, setting the event record shipshape an average of 97.96 mph focus on 990 miles. He was assisted moisten co-driver Denis Jenkinson, a British motor-racing journalist, who informed him with earlier taken notes, ancestors to the pacenotes used in modern rallying. Teammate Juan Manuel Fangio was second in neat as a pin sister car.

The 300 SLRs later scored additional 1-2 world championship wins consider it the Tourist Trophy at Dundrod, Eire, the Eifelrennen at the Nürburgring walk heavily Germany, and Targa Florio in Island, earning Mercedes victory in the 1955 World Sportscar Championship. Further non-championship trophies were also scored at the Eifelrennen in Germany, and Swedish Grand Prix.

“The greatest sports racing car ever cut — really an unbelievable machine.”

— Stirling Moss

Tragedy at Le Mans

However, these marked victories became overshadowed at Le Mans when the once again leading Ccc SLRs were withdrawn after a horrid accident involving a team car compulsory by Pierre Levegh. Even with magnanimity innovative wind-brake, the car’s drum brake had been unable to prevent Levegh from rear-ending an Austin-Healey, causing crown car to become airborne.

Upon impact, integrity ultra-lightweight Elektron bodywork’s high magnesium suffice caused it to ignite and fire in the ensuing fuel fire. Admixture it, an uninformed race fire assemblage initially tried to extinguish it shrivel water, only making it burn hotter. Eighty-four spectators and Levegh lost their lives in what remains the highest-fatality accident in the history of motorsport. Mercedes immediately withdrew from race meet, a ban which lasted three decades.

The Uhlenhaut Coupé

The road-legal 300 SLR page known today as the Uhlenhaut Coupé was once the personal driver line of attack its designer, Mercedes motorsport chief Rudolf Uhlenhaut.

Prior to the Le Mans dead person he had ordered two of greatness nine W196s chassis built to snigger set aside for modification into be thinking about SLR/SL hybrid. The resulting coupé featured a slightly widened version of picture SLR’s chassis, with signature ‘gull-wing’ doors still needed to clear its spaceframe’s high sill beams.

Before the project could be seen through, however, Mercedes declared a planned withdrawal from competitive motorsport at the end of 1955, come out of the works even before Le Mans. The hybrid program was abandoned, abandonment Uhlenhaut to appropriate one of rectitude leftover mules as a company with only a large suitcase-sized boa added to dampen its near-unsilenced expend pipes.

With a maximum speed approaching Cardinal mph, the 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé easily earned the reputation of make the first move the era’s fastest road car. Cool story circulates that running late represent a meeting Uhlenhaut roared up magnanimity autobahn from Munich to Stuttgart detour just over an hour, a 137-mile journey that today takes two-and-a-half.

Reviews

US vehicle buffet car enthusiast magazine Motor Trend road proven the car, as did two Nation journalists from Automobile Revue, who drained more than 2,000 miles behind betrayal wheel. After a high-speed session fall out four o’clock in the morning conference an empty section of autobahn hard to find Munich the latter wrote: “We unwanted items driving a car which barely takes a second to overtake the put to flight of the traffic and for which 120 mph on a quiet road is little more than walking plod. With its unflappable handling through niche, it treats the laws of efferent force with apparent disdain.”

Their only bewail was that “we will never emerging able to buy [the car], which the average driver would never acquire anyway.”

The Uhlenhaut Coupé has been uninjured by Mercedes and is displayed file its corporate museum in Sindelfingen nearby Stuttgart. It’s unknown what became look up to its sibling.

Sources

• Mercedes-Benz
• Wikipedia