This is a very special car - Say hello to the one-of-a-kind 1953 Mercedes Benz 300SL Gullwing Prototype (designated W194/11) There is only 1 of these in the world. It is owned by the Mercedes Benz Classics division and kept mostly in their big museum in Stuttgart Germany.
This was Uhlenhauts testbed car for a new generation of improved race cars in the GT classes.1 But don’t be fooled… this car still tours the world to various exclusive car shows, presentations and exhibits. You can see it on one of “Jay Leno’s Garage” episodes on YouTube. This was the experimental design platform for the eventual production Gullwing 300SL in 1954-57. She is smaller, lighter and sportier than the bigger production car. I personally think this car should have been refined and produced as such, and would have had as much success as the more luxurious production 300SL we all know and love.
This was a particularly challenging car to build accurately due to it not being a car designed or made for public consumption… except to be viewed in a museum and various car events and shows around the world. And the one in existence is currently silver, but there are black & white photographs from the 50’s showing it was painted a very dark color… Im guessing it was red for various reasons.
The part that helped this build quite a bit was taking my existing production gullwing model and modifying it to be the prototype here. The only mutual frame of reference I had for both cars that made scaling easier was the size of the wheels.