A story on our Danish website last week prompted me to start thinking about classics that were seen as direct alternatives when new, and remain so now. In fact, we might make a series out of it…
I thought we’d start with a pair that our own Claus Ebberfeld saw while he was at last week’s Bremen Classic Motor Show, two cars that are among the most exalted of all classics. They are similar on very many levels – both are German, both were very advanced for their time, both were very expensive then and still are today, and both are rare, especially one of them.
I’m taking about two of the most exquisite cars ever built, the Mercedes-Benz 300SL, and the BMW 507. Since the Munich car is a roadster, it’s the 300SL in roadster form that is the most directly comparable, although it’s the gullwing version that is in many ways the better known, precisely for those extravagant doors.
In the years following WWII, Mercedes-Benz rebuilt its reputation on its reliable, elegant but staid W136 saloons, as well as the larger W191 and W187 luxury saloons, and from 1953, the “Ponton” saloons and coupé s, but what they lacked was a high-end performance car. Looking to enhance their brand, they returned to motor racing with the 1952 300SL sports racer and did so with great success, coming second in the Mille Miglia, coming first and second in Le Mans, and then taking the first four places at the Nurburgring, finishing with a win at the Carrera Panamerica.
Prompted by US importer Max Hoffman, who crops up again later in this tale, the first production 300SL to emerge was the gullwing coupé in 1954, followed by the roadster in 1957. While the gullwing is the more dramatic design, I find the roadster more aesthetically appealing, particularly in profile, and at the back.
The SL’s competition pedigree was directly traceable through to the road-going cars, built around a weight-saving tubular spaceframe, with the bonnet, boot and doors made of aluminium – all of which added to the cost.
The SL was powered by the world’s first production fuel-injected engine, a 2996cc straight six that pumped out 215bhp and propelled the SL – even in roadster form – to a top speed approaching 155mph, and it’s gullwing sibling was faster still – indeed, it was claimed to be the world’s fastest production car at the time.
While getting in and out of the gullwing required a fair degree of agility, due to its very wide sills, Mercedes were able to make entry into the roadster a less awkward proposition by redesigning the spaceframe. The soft-top also had a bigger boot, and was generally an easier proposition to live with.
For such an exclusive and expensive car – in the US, the coupé started at $6,820 (three times the price of the average American saloon) and the roadster cost $10,950 – the SL was a sales success. Some 1,400 examples of the gullwing were sold during its three-year run from 1954 to 1957, and the roadster, introduced as manufacturing of the coupé came to an end, followed suit, with 1,858 sold between its introduction in 1957 and the final car coming out of the Sindelfingen factory in 1963.
In the meantime, the company continued to enjoy great motor-sport victories, and perhaps the most famous racing 300SL of all, well, OK, SLR, was the Mille Miglia winning car driven by Stirling Moss with his navigator Dennis Jenkinson in 1955 – with Moss following “Jenks” reading his pace notes from a home-made roller scroll, an innovation at the time.
The 300SL was a genuinely charismatic car, in no small part due to its victorious motor sport campaigns. As well as the reflected glory from its success on the racetrack, additional glamour, as if it were needed, came from the long list of SL’s bought by celebrity owners, including the Duke of Edinburgh, King Hussein of Jordan, King Baudoin of Belgium, King Constantin of Greece and movie stars like Sophia Loren and Clark Gable, race drivers Juan Manuel Fangio and Rob Walker, among many other famous names. This transformed the image of Mercedes-Benz in the US, something which did not escape the notice of their Munich rivals.
Through the post-WW2 years, BMW had re-established itself as a maker of solid but not particularly inspiring large cars – the 501 and 502 “baroque angel” saloons and at the other end of the scale, the Isetta bubble car, and nothing in between. Directly influenced by the positive reaction to the 300SL, BMW were also looking for a car to enhance their brand, particularly in the US, and it was the influential Max Hoffman (that man again) who encouraged the Bavarians to build the 503 – as a coupé and roadster – and the 507 roadster. Both were designed concurrently by Albrecht von Goertz, and remain landmark designs to this day.
The 507 is stunning, just as much as it’s Stuttgart rival. It leans forwards with purpose, though less obviously macho than the 300Sl, which has a wider, more aggressive stance. The BMW also looks smaller and lighter than the 300SL, despite the latter’s aluminium panels, and it’s both – In fact, it’s almost exactly 200 pounds lighter, helped by its body being made entirely aluminium, as well as it being both shorter and narrower. It also has a bigger engine – a 3.2-litre V8, but despite this, the SL outperforms the 507 by a considerable margin, as the V8 only puts out 150bhp, making a 122mph top speed achievable, well behind the SL.
Like the SL, the 507 attracted a number of celebrity owners, including Elvis Presley – who had two – one of which he allegedly gave to Ursula Andress, whose husband John Derek already owned one, which must have made for interesting pillow talk…Former Formula 1 dictator Bernie Ecclestone was an owner, as was world champion on two wheels and four, the late and very great John Surtees, who was given his car by Count Augusta in 1956 for winning the world 500cc motorcycle championship on an MV Augusta.
When new, the 507 cost a then-eye watering DM26,500 in its home market, rising to DM29,000, although the 300SL was even more expensive, at DM32,500, and for all its iconic status today, von Goertz’s creation almost bankrupted BMW, as production costs proved much higher than anticipated, making it nigh on impossible for BMW to make a profit on the car despite it’s premium pricing.
Fortunately for BMW, they were saved by the much more humble 700 series, which they launched in August 1959. Indeed, they were almost taken over by their biggest rivals, Mercedes Benz – we could have been looking at a very different motor industry landscape without the 700.
In the event, just 252 examples of the 507 were built, and it is this rarity, as well as its sheer beauty, that means it now commands prices generally twice as high as the SL – the latter tends to fetch between £800-1m, whereas RM Sotheby’s sold a 1958 Series II 507 for $2,175,000 (£1,660,305 at the then exchange rate). Even this price was surpassed by the Surtees car which sold in July 2018 for £3,809,500 net of commission, making it the most expensive 507 sold to date. Of course, it’s unique provenance makes it special even among 507’s.
202 of the 252 made still survive, a testament to the high esteem in which they are held. Unsurprisingly, there are quite a few more SL’s still around, and while it’s unclear how many, in the mid-90’s over 80% of all 300SL’s built were known still to exist, and with values so high, it’s unlikely that this number will have shrunk by much, if at all.
So we come to decision time…of course, having never driven or even sat in either of these wonderful mobile works of art, any decision I made today would be with less than a full dossier of information. Nevertheless, were I ever to be fortunate enough to be in the position to make such a decision, I think it would have to be the 507, for its combination of sheer beauty and exclusivity. Having said that, I would be looking back at the 300SL Roadster with more than a tinge of regret as I drove off in the BMW….