Still going strong at 60 - the Mercedes SL

By Thomas Geiger Jan 18, 2012, 3:06 GMT

Stuttgart - The Mercedes SL, the latest version of which has just been unveiled, is celebrating its 60th birthday this year. The iconic sports car was originally planned only as a racing car marking the carmaker's return to the racetrack in 1952 but no sooner had it made its appearance when plans for a road version were mooted.

The designation 'SL' stands for 'sport' and 'light' with the original version fitted with the six-cylinder power unit, a steel frame and an aluminium body. Only weeks after its first test run, the SL took part in its first race, the Mille Miglia in Italy, finishing second place. Later in Le Mans it won a double victory and at the Nuerburgring it took the first four places.

It also won the most famous race of the time, the Carrera Panamericana through central America, with the works drivers Karl Kling and Hans Klenk finishing the 3,100 kilometres in a record time of 18 hours, 51 minutes and 19 seconds. Their SL weighed 870 kilogrammes with a 132 kW/180 hp engine that averaged a speed of 165 km/h.

The fact that the famous race car became a sports car for the road is mainly attributed to men like Maxi Hoffmann, an American car importer with Austrian roots. He was responsible for bringing the Porsche 356 to the United States and repeatedly urged the Mercedes managers to produce a street version, even making an offer to buy 1,000 units.

Finally the Mercedes bosses relented, and under the code name W198 they started the serial production of the 300 SL on February 6, 1954, only 14 months after the Carrera Panamerican victory.

The street version had many racing genes that can even be felt 50 years later. The three-litre six-cylinder direct injection engine has an output of 158 kW/215 hp with the 1.3 ton vehicle accelerating from zero to 100 km/h in less than ten seconds. The exhaust pipes from the flanks made the cockpit pretty hot, especially at a top speed of 260 km/h, thus it was only natural to produce an open air roadster version in 1957.

Although the 300 SL has none of the electronic helpers of today it is famous for its good road-holding qualities. The big steering wheel feels pretty heavy in today's terms but anyone taking this precious car for a drive needs to know that only 1,400 coupes and 1,851 roadsters were ever produced.

According to Michael Kunz from the Mercedes Classic Centre in Irvine near Los Angeles, the first SLs are among the most expensive classic cars. 'A good example easily fetches between 100,000 and 200,000 dollars and a rare example almost a million,' he says.

Even at its launch the SL did not come cheap at a price of 29,000 German marks. But even the cheaper classics are a good investment with an increase in value almost guaranteed if they are well kept.

The successor to the original came out in 1963 under the works code of W113 and was known as the Pagode. In 1971, the R107 followed and the last SL with a vinyl roof was produced in 1989 as the R129. The R230 of 2001 was fitted with the same fold-down metal roof as the smaller SLK. Mercedes has sold some 700,000 units of the sports car.

At this month's Detroit Motor Show the latest SL celebrated its debut and for the first time since the 1950s has an aluminium body.