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Road Test: Mercedes-Benz 300SLR

Stirling Silver: Classic meets contemporary on a 1000-mile jaunt through Italy's charismatic countryside in the much loved Mille Miglia

By Alistair Weaver | Photos By Anton Watts |   |  
Stirling Moss didn't much care for the Mille Miglia. "I didn't like it at all," he exclaims in the crisp, old English accent that's become his trademark. "God, no... it was the only race I ever did that frightened me because I knew that I couldn't learn a thousand miles of road. It wasn't my idea of a good time, it was too dangerous."
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His candor raises a smile. Moss is now 75 years old, and his thoughts, comments, and aspirations are from a different age. There's no p.r. spin, just an honest insight into the background to one of motorsport's greatest-ever drives. At 7:22 a.m. on May 1, 1955, Moss left Brescia at the wheel of a Mercedes-Benz 300SLR with journalist Denis Jenkinson for company. Ten hours, seven minutes, and 48 seconds later, the Mercedes returned to this modest Italian town with 1000 miles on the clock. On public roads, closed for the occasion, Moss had achieved an average speed of 97.9 mph.
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After 50 years, Moss and the SLR are back in Brescia to celebrate the anniversary of their epic performance. The original Mille Miglia was banned in 1957 after a tragic accident left 12 dead, but the concept was revived in 1977 as a classic-car run. Low-speed timed sections provide a competitive element for those who care, but for most of the 375 entrants, the retrospective Mille Miglia is a 1000-mile jaunt through some of God's most beautiful countryside. Only cars built for the event's heyday--1927-1957--are entitled to enter, and this year's list of participants reads like a motorsport who's who. The SLR will be kept company by Jaguar D-Types, Ferraris, Bentleys, Porsches, and Chryslers. Advancing years will limit Moss's role to a celebratory sprint from the start line. He'll then hand over the SLR to veteran sports-car ace Jochen Mass, who will complete the course. Mercedes would like you to think that my choice of car is a direct descendant of the all-conquering "722." But while the Mercedes SLR McLaren shares a name with the 1955 original, it's built to a different brief. The contemporary SLR is billed as the ultimate Grand Tourer, mixing Mercedes civility with McLaren grunt and panache. A 2000-mile jaunt from London to the end of the Mille Miglia should prove whether this car is worthy of its hallowed name and inflated price tag. The original SLR is waiting for us in the town center and is a picture of elegant aggression. Mercedes's desire for a straight-eight engine configuration made for an exceptionally long wheelbase, but the 3.0-liter's output of 290 horsepower was enough to propel the car beyond 170 mph.
"It's a real man's car," says Moss, as we peek into the contorted cockpit. "You don't mince around with the SLR. It's a difficult car to drive but it's responsive to the throttle. You use the steering to present the car to the corner and then use the throttle to make it do what you want." Most old racing cars frighten at a standstill, and 722 is no exception. There are no rollcages or seatbelts, and a 100-gallon fuel tank is located directly behind the driver. Jenkinson recalls being doused with fuel for 15 miles after leaving Rome, but electing not to tell his driver. "Fire was our biggest fear," says Moss today, "and that's why we decided not to wear seatbelts. I'd seen a man die at Sebring because he was trapped in the car, and that image stayed with me." It's late evening before the cars exit Brescia and begin the relatively short hop to an overnight stay in Ferrara. Next morning, we leave for Rome. For the first hour, our 21st-century SLR runs in convoy with a 300SL Gullwing and a Ferrari 250 TDF. The regulations stipulate that the competitors must abide by the rules of the road--but this is Italy, and anything goes. We funnel in and out of traffic, making three lanes instead of two, and all the while we're accompanied by police outriders, sirens flashing. The SLR's performance can encourage delirium. The 5.4-liter supercharged V-8 develops a headline-grabbing 617 horsepower at 6500 rpm, but it's the 575 pound-feet of torque available at 3250 rpm that's the real clue to this car's performance. To summon enough thrust to overtake a stream of traffic, you don't so much prod the throttle as to gently curl a right toe. Concentration and delicacy are the prerequisites of smooth, rapid progress. The drive out from London through France, Belgium, Germany, and the Swiss Alps had been instructive. For all its electric steering-wheel adjustment and automatic gearbox, the SLR isn't an easy car to drive. It's stiff and pointy like no other Merc, and the slightest tweak of the steering prompts an instantaneous response--sneeze and you could end up in another state. It also takes time to acclimate to the ceramic disc braking system. By opting for a floor-hinged pedal (the throttle is conventional), Mercedes has denied the controls a consistency of response. While the brakes' ultimate stopping power can't be questioned, it's difficult to modulate their impact. Miles and familiarity alleviates the problem, but it never fully goes away. At least the brakes are better than those of the original SLR, which relied on drum technology. "They were terrible," Moss remembers, "but brakes exist for two reasons--to slow the car down and to give the driver confidence. I used them more to position the car than to slow it down--if we'd had air brakes, I don't think we'd have been as fast." We arrive in San Marino, and the extravagance of my charge, coupled with some Latino insouciance, lends me access to a closed section of city streets. While the route of the contemporary Mille Miglia mimics that of the original, it also includes a series of tours through Rome, Florence, Modena, and Cremona. The cobbled streets are absurdly narrow, and there's only a couple of inches clearance on either side of the McLaren's extravagant wing mirrors. Scratching the car here, on a stray postcard stand, would not be clever. I navigate the streets at little more than walking pace, but this at least affords me the opportunity to study the crowd's reaction. There are plenty of people who think the SLR shape has been overcooked and that it lacks the elegance of simplicity. There's some validity in this, but on the road, this car is pure theatre. To cruise to a halt and throw open the scissor doors is to provoke spontaneous cries of appreciation. This car looks and sounds expensive, which is just as well, given that it costs $455,500. Out of the city and on toward Rome. The roads open up here, and I find myself leaning harder on the loud pedal. McLaren's engineers have done a magnificent job of tuning this car's acoustics. On full throttle, the deep melodic roar is reminiscent of a Can Am racer, and it's worth using the gearbox's sequential facility just to keep it singing above 4000 rpm. There are times on these roads when I touch 130 mph, but this does no more than confirm the magnificence of Moss's achievement. Sir Stirling benefited from closed roads and Jenks's elaborate pace notes (see sidebar), but this still can't explain how he was able to sustain 170-mph speeds for long periods on blacktop that causes the modern SLR to tramline badly. Even Moss thinks he must've been mad. "When I think that I averaged nearly 98 mph, including three mountain passes, I can't quite believe it," he says. "I must have been very brave when I was younger." At one point, traveling at 170 mph, the duo took off over a crest and flew for 200 feet. "I saw Jenks tugging on his beard, so I knew we were in trouble," says Moss, "but we landed safely." On another occasion, the pair overtook a twin-engine plane that was filming the event. The start of leg three is in Rome, and I swap the SLR for a 1955 300SL. Borrowed from the Mercedes museum in Stuttgart, this immaculate Gullwing coupe is worth around $400,000 and has the words "don't crash me" written in invisible ink on its doors. We leave Rome and head for Tuscany with the SL's 215-horsepower engine singing merrily in front of my toes. The Gullwing needs careful handling--the rear suspension is crude and the steering weights-up alarmingly through quick corners, but the car that was the darling of Hollywood in the 1950s still conjures a huge sense of occasion. It's almost a shame when I return to the SLR for the afternoon session. By early evening, I've completed the legendary Futa mountain pass and am speeding through Bologna and on toward Modena. I tag along behind a police car as we blast through red lights, sprint down bus lanes, and dart through traffic. I have no genuine right to do so, but the local police take a laissez-faire attitude to glamorous wheels. We're making swift progress but nothing like the kind of progress Moss was making. Jenkinson recorded that, "in the cramped and confined space of our traveling hothouse and bath of filth and perspiration," they traversed the center of Florence at 120-130 mph and entered Bologna at an incredible 150 mph. Moss had been driving flat out for more than nine hours when he averaged 123 mph on the final stretch from Cremona to Brescia, and he was still traveling at more than 100 mph as he crossed the finish line, wondering whether he'd won. That final stretch, on wide-open, flowing roads, offers scope for reflection. The contemporary SLR has significant flaws--the brakes remain a problem, the steering could use more feel, and the interior is awash with poor detailing and questionable plastics. But for all its faults, the SLR still has a sense of drama that's difficult to resist. The noise is sensational, and time behind the wheel has bred confidence in the chassis; where once it felt nervous, it now feels responsive and agile. The fusion between McLaren and Mercedes also feels better resolved than it did on first acquaintance. This is a supercar you could use everyday, but it also succeeds in feeling dramatically different from a standard AMG. I imagined what it must've been like 50 years ago when 10 million people lined a thousand miles of road to watch a plucky young Brit and his Mercedes explore the limits of human endeavor. We will never see its like again. Pace Notes
Moss's co-driver Denis Jenkinson devised a novel way of preparing his pace notes. Every instruction was written on an 18-foot roll of paper, which was then inserted into an aluminum box. An elaborate system of hand signals then guided Moss through the most perilous parts of the route. For the 50th anniversary, Moss has had 722 replicas made of this roller-map, and they're priced at #722 each. "I wanted to make a thousand in 1955 to sell to rich Americans," says Moss, "but Jenks wouldn't let me. He was a weird little man, and he thought it would devalue the original. He said I'd have to wait until he was pushing up daisies before I went ahead." Jenks died five years ago, but Moss reckons his old friend would've approved of his decision. "I'm sure that after 50 years, he'd have said the time was now right." For more information contact stirlingmossltd@aol.com.

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