The 300SL-Powered Blue Wonder

These days, getting your race team from point A to point B is done with something as prosaic as a semi truck. Oh sure, they've got fancy paint jobs, and are mobile workshops on wheels, but they're kind of bland boxes. That was not always the case. Back in the 1950s, the Mercedes Benz Formula 1 team used a custom built car hauler that was powered by the same engine used in their 300 SL Gullwing. The called in The Blue Wonder, and they weren't kidding.

Mercedes is hauling out the old transporter as part of the celebrations of the 75th anniversary of the Mercedes-Benz Silver Arrows racers of years past. Sure, they're showing the 1934 Lo 2750 stake bed hauler from the pre-war days, and also a modern day Actros Truck, but it's the replica of the Blue Wonder from 1955, the so-called fastest racing car transporter in the world, that is really worth paying attention to.

It's not the original, sadly, but is an official replica built up by the factory. The first 'Blue Wonder' was built at the request of racing manager Alfred Neubauer back in the mid 1950s, and it served Mercedes-Benz for more than a decade.

Its swoopy design belies the fact that this is a massive vehicle. It's 6.75-meters long and two-meters-wide. The transporter was built up on a lengthened tubular frame from the Mercedes-Benz 300 S luxury coupe of the same era. It was motivated by a three-liter inline-six with direct-injection that was lifted directly from the legendary 300 SL Gullwing sports car of 1955. Other components, like the doors, fenders and some of the interior bits were taken from the standard Mercedes-Benz 180 sedan.

After Mercedes-Benz pulled out of racing at the end of 1955 following the Le Mans tragedy from the previous June, the 'Blue Wonder' was used as an exhibition vehicle in the USA. After that it was used for ten years by the Mercedes-Benz test department.

For unknown reasons, the great Rudolf Uhlenhaut, one of the greatest racing engineers ever, and manager of the motor sports department during the transporter's racing period, had the Blue Wonder model scrapped in 1967. Decades later, Mercedes came to their senses and rebuilt the racing car hauler using archive photographs.

Source: CarScoop