Allow me to use this article to extend an apology to my artistically inclined friends. God bless them, for years they have tried to make me understand art. What makes this particular item much more valuable than this other one, the intent of the artist and its relationship to the quality of the work, unique stylistic touches. By the time they make it to movie posters as an example of art on even the most mundane of pursuits, I’m already in my head thinking of more interesting things that could also be art.
The Uhlenhaut 300SL makes it to that list.
When it took headlines for its astronomical price a couple of weeks ago, I was unsusprised. I knew something would have to eventually take the crown of the Ferrari 250 GTO. The Uhlenhaut is one of those precious few vehicles that are as rare and as desirable enough to be in the running.
Rudolf Uhlenhaut’s name is up there on the list of people who’ve helped Mercedes-Benz remain on the upper eschelons of automobile brands. Right there with Emil Jellinek, who commissioned the first vehicle to carry the name “Mercedes”, to Paul Bracq and Bruno Sacco, both of whom created designs so iconic they still form the basis for the brand’s overall design language. Uhlenhaut, however, gets the credit for designing the most iconic Mercedes in history.
Working from the car that used to take Chancellor Adenauer to work every morning and knowing he couldn’t compete with Jaguar and Aston Martin on power alone; Uhlenhaut set to work creating the spaceframe that would require his racing car to be fitted with the then-merely-distinctive door arrangement. Nobody could fault the results of this strategy, with the resulting racecar winning both LeMans and the Carrera Panamericana.
It is from this initial racecar, germanically called the W194, that we get one of the best automotive lineages on the 50s. The W196 that succeeded it won both formula 1 championships it was entered on. From there straight to another legend, the 300SLR, whose successful racing pedigree will forever play second fiddle to the tragedy at LeMans. Before it, however, the Mercedes-Benz Racing apparatus was unstoppable. Nine 300 SLRs were built. Rudolf wanted two of them to be coupes.
The 300SL may be the most iconic Mercedes in history, but between it and the 300 SLR coupé, it loses the beauty contest. Some cars look like the body has been stretched over the chassis. This looks like a cheetah in mid-leap. Those side exhausts may have contributed to Herr Uhlenhaut’s hearing issues later in life (to be fair, he did install a huge silencer at some point while he used it as a personal car) but in terms of pure aesthetics they are perfect. And a testament that nothing was to be compromised on the pursuit of performance. After all, this and the other coupe that he ordered were supposed to be racing cars. However, the LeMans disaster put an end to that. Yet another “what-could’ve-been” for the history books.
It’s now up to the winner of the auction, which rumour says is renowned classic car dealer Simon Kidston to decide the future of the car. On his website there’s a video call to “get out and drive”. Will he do that with the most expensive car in the world? Or will he treat this particular one as an investment, to be sold for an even more ludicrous sum of money when the economy is not in the process of going somewhere very warm in what seems to be some sort of handbasket? One has to hope its both. If the contemporary reports are to be believed, everyone in a 5km radius will immediately find out if he decided to just send it down the road.
It’s the way it was meant to be treated.
