This would not be my first encounter with a 300SL. Back in the 1980s, I was on assignment at a vintage race at Willow Springs, California, when the announcement came over the public address that journalists were invited to tour the track as passengers in a few of the competitors’ cars. I was ushered to a crème-caramel colored 300SL Roadster. I buckled myself into the harness, and the driver took me for a couple of quick laps around the desert raceway.

The 300SL was rapturous, even for a passenger: the ride was firm, but as supple and comfortable as my mother’s 1982 R107 SL –  though a glance at the speedometer showed the thrilling side of 100 miles per hour on the back straight. Fast, solid, and mythic in its provenance, that was my first ride around a race track.

And now I’d be behind the wheel of one of these fabled automobiles, plus four others from the marque’s storied history. Needless to say, I made sure to arrive early the day of the drive, and found my way to the Mercedes-Benz Star Lounge on the grounds of Pebble Beach.

I made my way down the ramp from the static display (including the ex-La Carrera Gullwing) and took a few moments to eye the five cars on display. Three were obvious: the 300SL, the 280SL “Pagoda,” and the R107 380SL. In addition, there was a bright red SL55 AMG, and an SL500.

First time in a Pagoda

For my first drive, I chose a W113 280SL Pagoda. The 1971 car I drove started instantly and moved smoothly forward, though the automatic gear selector was laid out opposite to conventional shifters: park was towards the rear, drive in front. The steering, by recirculating ball, requires light effort but a fair amount of motion when compared with modern vehicles, and the large-rimmed wheel lets you know you’re in a classic automobile.

So does the kick-down on the automatic. While the 2.8-liter engine is willing once you get its attention, downshifting takes almost the full travel of the throttle pedal – it’s as if there’s a switch in the last centimeter or so that drops the ‘box down a gear. This is something I recall from other, earlier German automobiles, so it’s not a flaw, it’s just another sense that you need to drive this car with intention.

What you get in return for that intention is a classic-car driving experience that would be perfectly at home on modern roads (assuming you’re familiar with looking up at the door handles of trucks and SUVs in traffic, of course). Like all five roadsters I drove that day, the W113 feels as if step one of its manufacturing process was to machine the body and chassis from a single billet of steel, like Michelangelo carving his David out of a single piece of marble. Cowl shake is clearly forbidden in Sindelfingen.

Jumping into the SL55 AMG

Next, I jumped forward several decades, to the R230-series SL55 in its AMG specification. There’s no vintage feel in the steering wheel, either by size or by responsiveness: it’s a very modern, small-diameter wheel with a thick, leather-wrapped rim, and it feeds into a quick responding rack-and-pinion system.

And speaking of faster response, the automatic shifter was vastly more reactive to a little judicious throttle movement than the W113’s had been. And you’d best be very judicious with the throttle, as the 493-horsepower supercharged V-8 will take you to 60 in 4.5 seconds, with 156 mph as the electronically-limited maximum. I had to give it one good shove at low speed, at which the thrust from the supercharged engine mashed me into the luxurious, grippy seats. I backed out almost immediately, duly impressed with the legendary combination of AMG and Mercedes-Benz. On returning the bright red SL55 to the Star Lounge, I let slip  that if I had owned this machine when I was 30, I would have lost my license. 

Enjoying the R129

Next up for me was the R129-series SL500, the SL55’s immediate predecessor. I hadn’t paid much attention to this model in the past; its styling seemed to represent a transition between wedge and bar-of-soap designs, with a “shape of things to come” triangular profile but softened edges and corners. After the visually breathtaking 300SL of the fifties and the elegant, graceful Paul Bracq design of the 280SL, this SL could have been overlooked. 

On the road, however, this car landed square in the sweet spot of power, handling, comfort, space, and overall satisfaction. While lacking the over-the-top urgency of the SL55, the five-liter V-8 produces enough power to move the rather heavy convertible smartly down the road. And the four speed automatic has no trouble finding a lower gear with just a toe on the throttle. 

Rekindling memories of the R107

The penultimate SL for my day was the R107 380SL. This was the SL of my formative years. I saw them everywhere growing up in Southern California, including in my own mother’s driveway. She owned a 1982 380SL for more than 20 years, surrendering it only when she and my stepfather struggled to put the hardtop on at the beginning of winter. (My stepdad made it up to her by getting her a 230SLK for Valentine’s Day.)

This car might be responsible for some of my cool response to the R129 on its introduction. The longitudinal ridges on the R107’s rocker panels, mirrored in the broad tail lights, give a sense of weight and dynamism to the profile. It’s clearly different from the subdued and elegant Bracq design of its predecessor, yet it’s evolutionary as well – including the slight concave roof to the hardtop (even though that was blissfully omitted for this event). 

The US-market R107 chassis came fitted with a number of engines over the years. The 3.8-liter V-8 was an early-‘80s nod to fuel economy as well as emissions. The newer, smaller engine still provides 155 horsepower at 4750 RPM, giving adequate thrust for the solid chassis, though the car’s four-speed gearing gave it good passing performance once under way. 

On the road, the 380SL feels a bit more ponderous even than the heavier SL500, not so much in throttle response but in resistance to directional change. Yes, it goes around corners, perhaps not as nimbly as the 280SL and certainly not with the authority of the SL55 AMG. And yet the richly counterbalancing reward for a slight directional  hesitancy is an on-the-road unflappability that makes the R107 such a fabulous road-trip car. 

Living the Dream

My final drive was the one I’d been dreaming of since I was a small boy, imagining racing through Italian towns with exotic names: Brescia, Verona, Ravenna, situated along the Adriatic Coast or in the Appenines. It was with exhilaration and a little apprehension that I approached the silver 300SL roadster, with slate-blue interior and an enormous ivory-colored steering wheel. They say you should never meet your heroes: would that admonition come true today?

I put all this apprehension behind me as I popped out the lever to open the driver’s door and took on the challenge of crossing the high, wide sill to slip a leg under the steering wheel, requiring some dexterity and imagination. I pulled my left leg in with a bit more ease, still trying not to scuff anything with the soles of my loafers, and settled into the well-cushioned leather seat.

“Just a lap belt in this one,” said Ralph Wagenknecht, press officer for Mercedes Classic and my codriver/chaperone for the drive. I clipped the belt in place. “You’ll need to press the key in to start it, and note that the handbrake is on.” Pushing the key into its slot on the dashboard brought the three-liter engine to life instantly, exactly as if it were a modern fuel-injected engine instead of one 64 years old. With a foot on the center pedal, I released the handbrake, pressed in the clutch, which is hinged at the bottom in standard 1950s practice. I selected first gear, and slowly pulled away from our parking slot beside the Star Lounge.

“It has drum brakes,” said Ralph, but he added that they are large aluminum drums designed to shed heat effectively. The feel was wonderful: I’d driven a number of classic sports cars from before the age of power assist, and the direct engagement is not merely familiar, but favorable to me. The balance among all four gears was perfect, as you might expect. The Classic Division certainly earns full marks for the precision and completeness of this car’s driving experience.

The gear lever is unique and totally in keeping with the 300SL’s heritage. It doesn’t require the same high effort as, say, a sixties Ferrari shifter, nor is it as liquid as a vintage Alfa Romeo gearbox. But it’s as direct as either of those. There was none of the “it’s around here somewhere” feeling of a fifties-era Porsche, with its transmission several meters from the driver’s right hand. The Benz does require that you shift with intentionality, but you are rewarded with the most delicious sensation of dozens of precisely shaped gear teeth meshing perfectly. There’s no wasted motion, no side-to-side wobble, no slop or imprecision. 

The driver’s right foot is at least as happy as his or her right hand. “The engine produces 215 horsepower,” Ralph had said as I was settling into the seat.

“A bump up from the Gullwing?” I asked. “I know the W194 series racing cars used twin Solex carbs for 180 horsepower in race trim, but the direct-injection used on the road cars brought that up to 200 horsepower – the only time I know of where the road car was more powerful than the racing car it was based on.” Ralph nodded sagely.

We negotiated the security barriers in and around the Star Lounge and I followed the by-now familiar path: out to Spyglass Hill Drive, then down to 17 Mile Drive and along the edge of the Pacific. As we headed into a decreasing-radius right hander in the downhill section, I dabbed a bit at the responsive drum brakes and felt the rear end lift just slightly and move a hair to the outside. “Oh, right, swing axles!” I said, and lifted off the brakes just slightly to settle the rear. The car responded perfectly, the nose tucking in to keep us in line while the tail remained respectfully behind us. 

“I think it was in his book The Racing Driver where Denis Jenkinson recounts the initial tests of Stirling Moss with the Mercedes works team in advance of the 1955 Mille Miglia,” I said. Ralph nodded. “Apparently, Moss took the 300SLR out and used the swing axle geometry to achieve higher cornering speeds: he would brake on entry, then steer while the rear axle was still lifted, allowing the outside tire to begin to drift and swing the chassis around. Then he’d press on the gas to plant the rear end and come around in a controlled slide, which impressed the team.” Ralph nodded and turned to look at me.

“I won’t be doing that today,” I said. Ralph chuckled.

Meeting your heroes 

All in all, what was it like to drive a boyhood dream? I sensed that, given the right roads and a little experience with the car (and sufficient insurance), this was still a car you could drive all day at one hundred miles an hour. As with all the SLs, from the Pagoda through the AMG, the 1957 300SL had the same hewn-from-solid feel, a rigid body-chassis unit on supple yet athletic springs and dampers. The seats were as supportive and comfortable as my mother’s R107, or my father’s 280SE 3.5 sedan before that. The rumble of the engine, the climb of the tach needle, and the exhaust note; everything about this car let you know why it was, in the estimation of virtually all its contemporaries, the ne plus ultra of fifties-era high performance sports cars. 

The 300SL more than lived up to my decades of anticipation and dreaming. Perhaps the saying about not meeting your heroes only applies to humans, fallible and complex as we are. When the hero in question is perhaps the greatest sports/racing car of its era, prepared with the respect and precision it deserves, it simply surpasses all measurement.