Looking back at the Mercedes-Benz’s motorsport history, it’s pretty difficult to single out one highlight in particular, but the 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR sure makes a strong case for itself.
Just like it’s doing with Formula 1 now, back in 1955 Mercedes-Benz was dominating the World Sportscar Championship and the car it was doing it with was the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR. The race car was coming with one-two or even one-two-three wins on a regular basis and it eventually brought Mercedes-Benz the World Sportscar Championship title that year.
To honor this iconic model, Mercedes-Benz Classic is now presenting a new book on the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR written by the renowned motor car author Günter Engelen after meticulously studying the comprehensive archives. The book will be printed in a limited and numbered edition and it will be the first volume of a new series called “Milestones of Motorsport”.
“The Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR is one of our supreme racing car icons”, says Michael Bock, head of Mercedes-Benz Classic and the Customer Center. “I admire this perfect motor sport machine – as well as all the people who built and drove the vehicle in the 1950s. Günter Engelen shares this admiration, and we could not have found a better author for the book.”
Günter is now 77 years old so he had the opportunity of experiencing a large part of motorsport history firsthand. Since 1985, he has become interested in the history of the motor car as a whole, and the Mercedes-Benz brand in particular.
For this new book, Engelen dug deep into the Mercedes-Benz Classic Archive, compiling documents and information to create a book that has the makings of an icon in its own right.
The book doesn’t just follow the car as an end product, but also its creation and the people involved. The level of detail and accuracy is staggering and was only possible thanks to Günter’s tenacity and perseverance.
Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR. Milestones of Motorsport, Volume 1. Edited by Daimler AG, Mercedes-Benz Classic, text by Günter Engelen. Published by Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, May 2015; hardcover, 256 pages, 288 photographs and illustrations, in slipcase, numbered and limited to 999 copies in German and English respectively. 199 euros. ISBN: 978-3-7757-4000-5 (German), 978-3-7757-4001-2 (English). Available at the Mercedes-Benz Museum shop and from bookshops.
