History and Romance in a Gullwing Suitcase
When Strater Hendricks, of Columbus, Ohio, decided in October 1956 to purchase a new Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing for delivery to him at his hotel in Paris in late December of that year, he simply wrote a letter directly to Daimler in Stuttgart. After the car was delivered, he drove it for two weeks, then had it shipped to New York in time for him to attend an SCCA meeting in Detroit in February. In June, he shipped the car back to Europe, visiting Rome and Monte Carlo before dropping it off in Paris in August for servicing and shipment back to the United States.
How do I know this interesting piece of personal historical trivia? Because the original documents, and nearly every other piece of paper from this silver Gullwing’s history, were all carefully preserved in a set of notebooks stowed in the original fitted black leather suitcases that were in the car when we bought it from the estate of the third owner just last year.
“Check the documentation” is a familiar precept offered to anyone buying an older automobile. A car that comes with all of its paperwork, including the original invoice and all the service receipts, can command much more money than one with no documentation. With an undocumented car, there are always questions: Was the oil changed regularly? Was the timing chain replaced? Is that an original engine or one that was rebuilt recently? If there’s any evidence of damage on the car, was it repaired carefully and correctly?
Only original documentation can answer these questions to the prospective owner’s satisfaction, so we always encourage Mercedes-Benz owners to retain the documents that relate to their car, and keep good records of the car’s maintenance history. When it comes time to sell the car, this information will definitely help get the best possible price.
But with this Gullwing, there was so much more that we were able to learn. The first owner clearly recognized from the very start that he had a valuable car, so he created what we sometimes call a “baby book” – so named because of its obvious resemblance to the scrapbook proud parents often create of their children – for the car from the very beginning.
It would only have been good business for Mr. Hendricks to save the ordering correspondence, invoices, and receipts, but he also tucked into the notebooks memorabilia like the car’s airplane ticket for its flight from Southampton to Deauville on its second trip back to Europe. Without that, who would have even recollected that before the Chunnel Train and fast car-ferries, it was not unusual to fly the “Sky Ferry” with your car if you were in England and going auto touring in Europe?
As we went through the documents in the car, we were also able to get answers to some interesting questions of originality, since this Gullwing had several anomalies that challenged conventional wisdom. For example, it had black leather luggage that matched the upholstery rather than the pigskin cases one would normally see. In addition, the car was equipped with seatbelts that were obviously a period style, as well as a back-up light that would have been appropriate on one of the rally cars, but wasn’t installed on customer cars.
Not only did the original invoice and receipts show that these options were original to this car, but they also proved that in that period, a customer could add to and change many of the specifications if desired. The knowledge that this car was ordered and equipped at the factory with non-standard components underlines our standard of never talking in absolutes about originality. In this case, the documents increased our knowledge of the specific options and ordering flexibility available to a Gullwing buyer.
Similarly, when this car changed hands – the second owner was Don Ricardo, director of the NBC Television Orchestra and well-known for his enthusiasm for Mercedes-Benz – it acquired some chrome trim in the engine compartment. Because we had the documentation of these additions, when we refreshed the car after acquiring it, we retained those non-original pieces because they were part of the history and, yes, the romance of this car.
There is much more wrapped up in these documents than just the car itself. The documents offer a window through which we can see how business was conducted in that period.
On the one hand, business relationships then were more flexible but more reliant on ethical obligations. Hendricks’s order for his luxury car was mailed with just a company address, but immediately got careful attention. Eight weeks later, the car was delivered exactly as he ordered it to his hotel in Paris where the courier handed him the keys in exchange for a simple piece of paper promising that his bank would pay the company for the car.
On the other hand, in reading that correspondence and the careful notations on the invoices and receipts, we see the formality of how personal relationships in business were conducted in that era. Letters and cables were carefully written and edited before being sent. All of this was in contrast to our present day, where we often hit the send button without thinking, but then hope that someone on the other end will follow through.
Until we see primary documentation like this, we don’t begin to understand how different business is today from the way it was only 55 years ago, with our emphasis now on contractual legalisms in commerce, but our acceptance of a casual and breezy style of emails and text messages in correspondence.
With the history of this car at our fingertips, we made a conscious decision to retain the patina of the car as much as possible in preparing it for sale. The paint was a little tired, though still very presentable, but we knew from the receipts that it had been repainted at the factory 10 years after it was first purchased. That original leather upholstery showed a comfortable patina, but responded nicely to a little conditioning, reflecting the loving care with which it has been maintained. For these reasons, we had little desire to bring this car back to “showroom condition,” though that’s often done with valuable cars like these. Fortunately, the new owner agreed with us that the car had more intrinsic value to him with the original upholstery and paint than it would have been had we done a frame-up restoration.
The history wrapped up in the memorabilia and documents in this car’s baby book also provides a springboard for our imaginations. For example, knowing that the upholstery is original, and finding a ticket in the notebook from a parking garage in Monte Carlo in July 1957, we can easily create a little picture story of the car driving up to the main entrance of the Casino, and visualize a passenger sitting on that very upholstery when the valet swung up the door and assisted her out of the passenger seat.
Collector automobiles that have questionable provenance are often described as “cars with stories.” But in this case, the records that the three owners carefully saved tell us stories that make this car very special, and consequently much more interesting than a car restored to showroom condition but with no known history. Those two thick scrapbooks give us information about the car, but they also tell us about the period in which the car was built and driven, and the people who drove it.
That’s really what the classic car hobby is all about. It isn’t about the metal, wood, and leather, though these can often create a work of sculptural art. It isn’t even the mechanical and electrical design that explained the performance of the car in its day.
For those of us who truly love this hobby, these cars represent a tangible link to the people who owned, rode in, and enjoyed them in the past, and it is for that reason that we really treasure them and enjoy working on them.