The 1954 Gullwing being offered at Barrett-Jackson?s Scottsdale collector-car auction is such a car, a true time-warp piece that has been sheltered and cared for over nearly six decades, and driven just a bit over 4,000 miles.
Blackhawk owner Don Wiliams, who's offering the Gullwing, said he fell in love with the car when he first encounted it in the 1960s. (Photo: Barrett-Jackson) Other than a repaint to bring it back to its original silver color, the Mercedes is as it was when it left the factory, said collector car veteran and Blackhawk Collection owner Don Williams, who was just starting out in the mid-1960s when he fell in love with this very same Gullwing.
The Mercedes was part of Willet H. Brown?s vast Hillcrest Motors Collection in Hollywood, and Williams was working right next door at his first job for a couple of millionaire toy collectors. He would drop into Brown?s private collection to check out the automobiles, especially that Mercedes.
?It?s a great car,? Williams said. ?It?s the one that I stared at and drooled over from the time I was about 21 or 22.?
The fact that the powerful 300SL was rarely driven for all those years was typical of Brown, who bought it new, Williams said.
The Gullwing has been in protected storage and regularly maintained for nearly six decades. (Photo: Barrett-Jackson) ?He had Porsches with a few thousand miles on them; he had cars with under 500 miles,? he said. ?They were all perfectly clean and they all had to run. He was a real preservationist. That was his therapy. He would get done working and then go look at his cars.?
The Mercedes stood essentially unchanged over the years, although Brown had it repainted in a cream color because his wife said she didn?t like silver cars. Expert technician Jimmy Duffy worked as caretaker of the museum, Williams added, and it was his job to keep the cars and all the other collector items, such as vintage TVs and washing machines, in tip-top condition. Everything had to work.
Williams finally had an opportunity to buy the 300SL about 20 years ago in a Sotheby?s auction, which was selling off Brown?s collection. He immediately had it stripped and repainted back to its original silver, and it has been part of his Blackhawk Collection in Danville, Calif., ever since.
The 3-liter straight-six engine with the first fuel-injection system in a production car delivers 210 horsepower, enough for a 160 mph top speed. (Photo: Barrett-Jackson) Among collector cars, the 300SL Gullwing coupe is a solid citizen that has climbed in value, always desirable, often defying the peaks and valleys of the marketplace. The Gullwing?s pedigree is impeccable as a race car turned production car, beautifully designed and crafted, and a solid long-distance touring car for rallies and events.
The iconic ?gullwing? doors were an innovative solution to an engineering problem; the lightweight tubular chassis came up very high on the sides to maximize stiffness, making conventional doors essentially impossible. With that, Mercedes-Benz designers created a signature feature that would forever define the sports coupe and would be copied countless times in limited-production efforts. Today, Mercedes continues the tradition with its SLS AMG Supercar, whose gullwing doors are still a head-turning design feature.
The original Gullwing is powered by Mercedes? classic 3-liter overhead-cam inline six that generates 215 horsepower, its performance boosted by the first fuel-injection system in a production car, which nearly doubled the power of the carbureted engine. The road-going version had a top speed of 160 mph, making the 300SL the fastest production car of its day.
Source: http://automotive.speedtv.com/article/vintage-very-special-gullwing-at-b-j/
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