190SL
On 4 March 1958, a silver roadster left Stuttgart by rail. It has been driven 96,388 miles since then. It still wears the colors it was built in, and in 2017 it earned one of the highest honors in American collector-car judging. This is its portrait.
Photographed in studio, under one light, in 83 frames. The story is drawn from the factory data card and from the car itself.
Commission
900 638.
The factory typed it up on a single card: a 190 SL, body type Coupé, Baumuster 121 040. Paint: silver-grey metallic, DB 180 G. Upholstery: blue leather, code 333. Sealed-beam headlamps. A Varta 12-volt battery. Continental 6.40-13 tires on 5K × 13 wheels.
On 4 March 1958 it was consigned by rail to Lorenz in Hamburg. Sixty-eight years later, the chassis plate still reads 8500635, and the paint and leather are the ones on that card.
Build Record
As typed on the factory data cardThe other SL.
In February 1954, Mercedes-Benz showed two sports cars in New York. One was the 300SL, a racing car made road-legal. The other was the 190SL, built at the urging of importer Max Hoffman for drivers who wanted the shape without the race car. Same eyebrows over the wheels, same star in the grille, a car meant to be driven on a Sunday rather than raced at Le Mans.
Blue leather,
ivory wheel.
The card says blue leather, code 333, and blue leather is what you sit on. Matching door panels and carpet, a thin ivory two-spoke wheel, chrome-ringed gauges set into a body-color dash. It's a cabin built for two people and a long road.
1,897 cc.
Two Solex.
An overhead-cam four with twin side-draft carburetors. The data card logged it as engine 121921-8500614. The bay is detailed the way judges expect: labels, finishes and hardware photographed from every side.
The small
things.
A star the size of a dinner plate. Headlamp bezels like jewelry. A taillamp that is mostly chrome. In 1958 these were ordinary parts. Now they are why people stop and look.
Senior.
National.
First.
The Antique Automobile Club of America reserves its Senior award for cars that have already won a National First Prize and returned to be judged again, to the same standard. In 2017 this car earned it. The badge rides on the rear quarter, next to a taillamp that has been lighting the road since Eisenhower.
Time, honestly.
Sixty-eight years and nearly a hundred thousand miles leave a few marks, even on a car like this. We photographed them in the same light as everything else, because they are part of the story too.
83 photographs
A portrait of chassis 121040-8500635. Photographed in studio by John Murphy. History from the original Daimler-Benz data card.
