Mercedes SLS Roadster: "I used to own a Mercedes too…

The Key Largo start/finish point of the Mercedes SLS AMG Roadster test drive was a typically Monaco affair. From the outside the concrete-sided building at the end of a jetty beside a harbour full of super yachts didn’t look much. But once inside there was an amazing terrace and pool complex. It wasn’t until I went to the end of this and into what looked like someone’s living room that the truth was revealed. It *was* someone’s living room!

AMG had apparently rented the house from the owner for the launch, on the agreement they’d be out of the door by 4:30pm every day. He was still about though and I got chatting without realising immediately his connection with the whole thing. «I used to own an old Mercedes,» he said. «Here, I’ve got a video, if you’ve got five minutes I’ll show you.»

Film of Silver Arrows Mercedes racing round the Nurburgring, circa late 1930s, came up on the wall-sized TV. «They won’t like this, there’s a bit of German superiority stuff coming up,» he said, gesturing to the Mercedes staff working away in his front room. Ah, yes. Podium celebrations of the time made no secret of the fact Mercedes and Auto Union were backed by, ahem, the government of the day…

Moving swiftly on we came to footage of a 1939 Mercedes W154 being driven around Donington by John Surtees. «That’s it, that’s the car I owned,» said my host. What? That one? That utterly priceless Silver Arrows racing car? «Yes, that one.» You owned that? «Yes, I did.» Really? «Yes!»

In art terms this would be the equivalent of someone casually saying «I had a painting once, bowl of sunflowers, done by some Dutch bloke with one ear» and even though this chap was clearly a man of means the fact he’d once owned one of the most desirable of all racing cars ever made put in the serious collector league.

The car was one of two apparently ‘rescued’ (with the aid of a few notes to the crew from a train headed for Romania for safekeeping during the war and found after it. The car in question – chassis #7 – was raced to the European champion’s crown in 1939 by Herrman Lang (second from right in the above picture and, as such, is not only rare but also one of the most celebrated of all the team cars. Worth, literally, millions. And the bloke in the house in Monaco once owned it. Another world…

Dan

—Driven: Mercedes SLS AMG Roadster<a href="http://cars.uk.msn.com/blog/inside-track-blogpost.aspx?post=06251983-5601-41b4-b6f6-482cc7003677_blg=3" title="http://cars.uk.msn.com/blog/inside-track-blogpost.aspx?

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